Indian Americans celebrate I-Day with colourful parades

naeem@coastaldigest.com (IANS)
August 15, 2012

indianamericans

Washington, August 15: Indian Americans from East to West coast celebrated India's 66th Independence Day with colourful parades, Bollywood stars and cultural performances but with a prayer in their hearts for the Wisconsin gurdwara attack victims.

Thousands of community members are expected to join Wednesday's official celebration in Washington with the Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao hoisting the national flag at her residence.

Similar events are planned at Indian Consulates in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta and the Permanent Mission of India to the UN.

The Independence Day festivities kicked off Saturday with Bollywood actor Vinod Khanna leading the inaugural India Day Parade on Long Island in Hicksville, an upscale suburb of New York emerging as the newest 'Little India' in the US.

India's Consul General in New York, Prabhu Dayal, also joined the parade along with local officials.

Bollywood actress Prachi Desai Sunday led another India Day parade as grand marshal with music director Aadesh Shrivastava in Iselin, New Jersey, which has one of the largest concentrations of Indian-Americans in the US.

In Henderson, Nevada, Friends of India hosted their second annual parade Saturday featuring Miss Nevada 2012 Amanda Meagher and the national bird of India, a peacock.

In Boston, thousands gathered at the Hatch Memorial Shell Sunday for day-long festivities featuring a mix of classical, fusion, and Bollywood music and dance performances and a sampling of cuisine unique to various parts of India.

Organised by the India Association of Greater Boston, the event also featured sombre reflection and prayer for the victims of the Aug 5 shooting at a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

The India Association of Los Angeles San Fernando Valley will have musician Bappi Lahiri and other Saregama singers at their celebration Aug 18 in Van Nuys, California.

The biggest parade in the US, hosted by the Federation of Indian Associations for the 32nd time this year, will take place in Manhattan Aug 19 and features Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, cricketer Anil Kumble, 40 floats, and dance and song performances.

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News Network
May 8,2025

US President Donald Trump says he is willing to reach an agreement with Iran that allows Washington to “blow up” Tehran’s nuclear energy facilities.

“It’s that simple,” he said during an exchange with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, on Wednesday.

“I would much prefer a strong, verified deal where we actually blow them up…,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Deal’s outcome: Either ‘Nice aggression’ or ‘vicious aggression’

The 78-year-old former president added that there were only two possible outcomes, namely “blowing them up nicely or blow them up viciously.”

This is not the first time, Trump and other American officials have urged “total dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear energy program. The US president had last made the insistence during comments on the NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Observers said such statements underline the US administration's continued aggressive approach towards the Islamic Republic and its nuclear energy program.

The adversarial standing comes while Washington and Tehran have been engaging in indirect talks since March. The talks’ initiation marked drawn-out absence of such engagement between the two sides that had been caused by Washington’s illegal and unilateral withdrawal from a historic nuclear deal between Tehran and others in 2018.

Most recently, Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff said, “The president wants to see this solved diplomatically if possible, so we’re doing everything we can to get it going."

Trump’s remarks, though, diagonally contradict Witkoff’s statement about the president’s alleged interest in a diplomatic solution.

Trump also said potential American aggression against Iran’s nuclear sites had to result in “de-nuking them.”

The US and its allies have for long been trying to accuse the Islamic Republic of pursuing “nuclear weapons,” despite the country’s repeated avowal not to either pursue, develop, or stockpile such weaponry as per moral and religious imperatives.

Tehran’s peaceful nuclear policy has been verified unexceptionally by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has never found any indication of such pursuit, as it has put the country's nuclear activities under the most extensive investigative processes compared to any other member of the United Nations nuclear agency.

The Western narrative, though, has been used extensively to try to justify escalating sanctions, military threats, and covert operations targeting Iran and its nuclear infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic has invariably vowed to deal effectively with attempts on the part of the US, its allied states, or proxies at engaging in military adventurism against the country.

The assertion was last reiterated by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, who underscored on Monday that the country would unquestionably defend its sovereignty against any threat or use of force.

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