Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was born in Karnal, India. She was the first Indian-American astronaut and first Indian woman in space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Chawla completed her earlier schooling at Tagore Baal Niketan Sr. Sec. School,

Suchitra Sen was the first Indian actress to receive an award at an international film festival

Suchitra Sen was born in Pabna, in the present-day Pabna District of Bangladesh, on 6 April 1931. Her father Late Karunamoy Dasgupta was the headmaster of the local school, and her mother Indira Devi was a homemaker. She was their fifth child and third daughter. She received her formal education in Pabna.

Suchitra Sen married Dibanath Sen, son of wealthy Bengali industrialist Adinath Sen, in 1947 and had one daughter, Moon Moon Sen, who is a former actress. Her father-in-law Adinath Sen was supportive of her acting 

Sri Ramkrishna Paramhamsa

Ramakrishna (pronounced: IPA: [Ramkṛiṣṇo Pôromôhongśo]  listen (help·info)) (18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (IPA: [Gôdadhor Chôṭṭopaddhae]), was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu renaissance during the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of his disciples and devotees believe he was an Avatar or incarnation of God. He is also referred to as "Paramahamsa" by his devotees, as such he is popularly known as Ramkrishna Paramhamsa.

Ramakrishna was born in a poor Brahmin Vaishnava family in rural

First Vedic Temple in Mongolia

Krishna Consciousness is being practiced in Mongolia since 9 years. From the very beginning Mongolians were eager to receive Vedic knowledge and be educated in the Vedic culture.

At the moment the Mongolian congregation has about 25 active devotees, of which three are being initiated. Some devotees went presently to India, Pune, to be further trained and educated.

Recently our first vegetarian restaurant "Govinda" opened right in the center of Ulan Batoor (capital of Mongolia), which is daily being visited by many people.

The only existing temple at the moment in Mongolia is a traditional Mongolian housing, called "ger" (yurta) where we hold our Sunday feast regularly. 

 

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The Hindu Temple Society of North America

Ganesh Temple History

The Hindu Temple Society of North America ("Society"), a non-profit religious institution was incorporated on January 26, 1970, under the laws of the State of New York. Soon thereafter, the Society acquired from the Russian Orthodox Church a site on which the present Temple is situated. It was in this small frame house that daily rituals were performed and weekend services conducted by volunteer priests, until the present structure, designed in accordance with the Agama Sastras (scriptures relating to temple building), was completed early in 1977, and the Temple consecrated on July 4 of the same year. His Holiness Sri La Sri Padrimalai Swamigal, a great siddha from Madras, had prepared twenty-six yantras for the temple and done pujas for them for five years before installing them on July 4, 1977.

The logo of the Society is a light surrounded by insignias of several religions with OM on top. It signifies universality, catholicity and spirit of tolerance of Hinduism. While stressing the supremacy of the Absolute and deifying some of the major aspects as represented by the main deities, the Center stresses the totality and fundamental unity at the core of all religion. Hinduism has no place for crusades.

As the first Hindu Temple in North America composed of largely imported materials, and constructed by artisans from India, Šri Mahã Vallabha Ganapati Devasthãnam (or the Ganeša Temple) is one of the most impressive and historically important Hindu temples in the West. Flushing, Queens was chosen as the location for the Ganeša temple based on three criteria: it was the gateway of the U.S. - all Indian immigrants came here and there was a large concentration of Hindus in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; it was within walking distance for many, or one bus or subway fare; and the possibility existed to purchase a suitable site. Its strength and influence outside of New York is proven by the fact that the temple has served as a model for many other Hindu communities.

The Hindu Temple Society of North America today has over twenty thousand devotees on its mailing list. In addition to these, there are thousands of other devotees not necessarily on the mailing list who benefit from religious and cultural activities of the Temple, and to which generous contributions are made. It is the intent of the Society to offer formal instructions in religion, philosophy, culture and the arts to its devotees and their families. Fund Raising activities of the temple include organizing pooja sponsorship (services), cultural events, temple gift certificate, fund raising dinner, gold coin mala, sponsorship of chairs and constituent parts for the community center and other projects.

Neighborhood and Community

The Hindu Temple is situated right in the heart of Flushing, which is a part of Queens County. Although Queens is, politically speaking, one of the five boroughs of New York City, it is, in geographical terms, a part of Long Island and is, therefore, largely a residential area. The Temple is easily accessible to its devotees both by private and public transportation. Within walking distance of the Temple are two branches of the New York Public Library, the Queens Botanical Garden, Kissena Park, and Flushing Meadow Park, and the Main Post Office. The Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts is a stone’s throw from the Temple, while the Queens Museum is a short ride away by automobile or subway.

Community Center

Construction of Community Center was completed in June 1998. This community center is one of the largest and the finest of its type in the borough of Queens and has its main entrance at the corner of Holly Avenue and Smart Street. The center has three floors. The main floor is the wedding hall and can be divided into two, with a sound proof partition in between, so that two functions may take place simultaneously. The second floor is the auditorium with seating capacity of over 700 and it is equipped with state of the art audio and lighting facility. In the lower level is a large industrial kitchen with a large dining hall. Cultural programs, discourses, weddings and many other events take place in the Community Center. 

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Sayone Arasratnam at Youth Network in Canada

Sayone is the Founder/President of the Hindu Youth Network (Canada's largest and fastest growing Hindu youth movement). While working as an IT Analyst and Management Consultant (for companies such as IBM, AT&T, Bank of America, United Online), he also serves on the steering committees of various national and international non-governmental organizations. His educational qualifications include a B.Sc. (Honours) in Computer Science, Specializing in Software Engineering. Believing that it was his spiritual duty to bring peace and happiness to those around him, he launched and developed HYN. He has been involved in mentoring (working with Toronto police to rehabilitate at-risk youth), service work with the Sathya Sai organization, feeding the homeless, as well as countless social initiatives. More recently he has been studying the classical scriptures, both dualistic and non-dualistic.

Canada's largest Hindu youth movement: HYN

Shumeet Banerji and Rajiv L. Gupta at HP

Shumeet BanerjiDirector since 2011

Mr. Banerji has served as Chief Executive Officer of Booz & Company, a consulting company, since July 2008. Previously, Mr. Banerji served in multiple roles at Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company and predecessor to Booz & Company, while based in offices in North America, Asia and Europe, including President of the Worldwide Commercial Business from February 2008 to July 2008, Managing Director, Europe from February 2007 to February 2008 and Managing Director, United Kingdom from 2003 to March 2007. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Rajiv L. GuptaDirector since January 2009

Mr. Gupta has served as Chairman of Avantor Performance Materials, a manufacturer of chemistries and materials, since August 2010 and as Senior Advisor to New Mountain Capital, LLC, a private equity firm, since July 2009. Previously, Mr. Gupta served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rohm and Haas Company, a worldwide producer of specialty materials, from 1999 to April 2009. Mr. Gupta occupied various other positions at Rohm and Haas since joining the company in 1971, including Vice-Chairman from 1998 to 1999; Director of the Electronic Materials business from 1996 to 1999; and Vice-President and Regional Director of the Asia-Pacific Region from 1993 to 1998. Mr. Gupta also is a director of Tyco International Ltd., The Vanguard Group and several private companies.

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Dr. Dileep Bhandarkar joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer

Dr. Dileep Bhandarkar joined Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer responsible for server hardware architecture and standards for Global Foundation Services (GFS) in May 2007. Global Foundation Services delivers the foundational platform for Microsoft’s online services, including MSN and Windows Live-branded services, Windows Azure, Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services, Xbox LIVE, Bing as well as over 200 additional services and Web portals. He is currently chief architect for GFS, focused on driving new technology initiatives that advance the energy efficiency of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. He is a sought after and frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences. Some of his current work and blogs can be found at www.globalfoundationservices.com.

Bhandarkar was elected an IEEE fellow in 1997 for contributions and technical leadership in the design of complex and reduced instruction set architecture and in computer system performance analysis. In 1998, he was recognized as a distinguished alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, where he received his B. Tech in electrical engineering in 1970. He also has a M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and has done graduate work in business administration at the University of Dallas.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Bhandarkar was director of advanced architecture in the CTO Office of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group and a lead spokesperson for evangelizing Intel server platform technologies to the industry and financial analysts. He was an Intel Distinguished Lecturer for several years. He has held several director-level positions related to CPU and platform architecture, and strategic planning over a 12 year career at Intel. He was instrumental in driving the strategic decision to implement AMD-compatible 64-bit x86 architecture at Intel, and pioneered the adoption of energy-efficient microprocessor cores across Intel’s product line.

Prior to joining Intel in 1995, Bhandarkar spent almost 18 years at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he managed processor and system architecture, and performance analysis work related to the VAX, Prism, MIPS, and Alpha architectures. He also worked at Texas Instruments for four years in their research labs in a variety of areas including magnetic bubble memories, charge coupled devices, fault tolerant memories, and computer architecture.

Bhandarkar holds 16 U.S. patents and has published more than 30 technical papers in various journals and conference proceedings. He is also the author of a book titled “Alpha Implementations and Architecture.” He has delivered several keynote speeches at computer and financial industry conferences.

Bhandarkar and his wife love to travel and have a passion for photography. Source

Rajesh Jha is the corporate vice president for the Office 365, Exchange and Forefront products for Office at Microsoft.

Rajesh Jha is the corporate vice president for the Office 365, Exchange and Forefront products for Office at Microsoft. In this capacity, Jha leads the teams responsible for worldwide development of Microsoft Exchange, one of the world's most popular communications systems; Office 365, an online suite of productivity, communications and collaboration services for organizations of all sizes; and Forefront security products for Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. The technologies Jha and his team deliver are used daily by millions of people via PCs, the Web and mobile phones — delivered to the customer as cloud services or on-premises products.

Jha has a long track record of positive contribution to Microsoft. Joining the company right out of university in 1990, he began his career as a software design engineer, working on clients, servers and services. Jha has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Chennai). Source

Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president for the Information Platform & Experience team at Microsoft Corp.

Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president for the Information Platform & Experience team at Microsoft Corp., and is part of the Online Services Division's senior leadership team. He is responsible for vision, product strategy and R&D for the Bing services and platform that includes mobile, mapping, and speech.

Pall joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer. He has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure, starting with LAN Manager Remote Access Service. Pall was part of the Windows NT development team, working on the first version of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 as a software design engineer, all the way through Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of core networking technologies such as PPP, TCP/IP, UPnP, VPNs, routing and Wi-Fi, and parts of the operating system. Pall co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry - Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) - which received the prestigious Innovation of the Year award from PC Magazine in 1996. He also authored several documents and standards in the networking area in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body in the mid-1990s.

Pall was previously the corporate vice president for the Office Lync & Speech Group, overseeing the vision, product strategy and R&D for the Microsoft Lync family of products and Microsoft Tellme services. He was appointed general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications efforts in January 2002 and helped develop a broad strategy that led to the formation of the Real Time Collaboration division and acquisition of PlaceWare Inc. (now called Microsoft Office Live Meeting). Since then, Pall has led acquisitions of media-streams.com AG and Parlano, and key industry partnerships with HP, Polycom and Aspect. Microsoft's Unified Communications efforts have received many technical and design industry awards. Pall was named one of the "15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference" in 2008 by Information Week. He co-authored "Institutional Memory Goes Digital," which was published by Harvard Business Review as part of "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009" and subsequently presented at the World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos.

Pall has more than 20 patents (in process or approved) in networking, VoIP and collaboration areas. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Oregon and an undergraduate degree in computer engineering from Birla Institute of Technology in India.

Pall is on the board of trustees of Ashesi University. Source

S. Somasegar is the corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.

S. Somasegar is the corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. Somasegar is responsible for engineering and marketing for developer tools and services, programming languages and runtimes designed for a broad base of software developers and development teams, including the Visual Studio and Expression families of products, .NET Framework, and Team Foundation Server. Somasegar also owns developer evangelism efforts spanning the full array of Microsoft platforms. His team also owns MSDN and TechNet online properties to enable a deep connection with the developer and IT professional audiences. In addition, Somasegar is responsible for the Server and Tools Business Global Development Centers in China, India and Israel and is the executive sponsor for the India Development Center and the Israel Research and Development Center for all of Microsoft.

Somasegar joined Microsoft in 1989 and contributed to eight releases of Windows before leading Developer Division. Somasegar holds a master's degree in computer engineering from Louisiana State University and a bachelor's degree in electronics and communication engineering from Guindy Engineering College, Anna University in Chennai, India.

In 2006, Somasegar was awarded an honorary doctorate from Anna University. In 2008, he was presented the Asian American Engineer of the Year Award.

Somasegar lives in the Seattle area. He and his wife have two daughters. He frequently shares his thoughts via his blog.

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Rajat Taneja is corporate vice president responsible for Microsoft's commerce platform

Rajat Taneja is corporate vice president responsible for Microsoft's commerce platform. The commerce technologies power Microsoft's online consumer and enterprise services enabling multiple business models in cloud computing and delivery of services like Xbox LIVE, Office 365, Windows Phone, and Azure. The commerce platform spans Microsoft's online capabilities in over 200 countries globally serving millions of consumer and enterprise customers.

Taneja joined Microsoft in 1996 and has held a variety of leadership roles across research & development of desktop and online software solutions as well as business and technical operations. His most recent position was corporate vice president in Microsoft's online services division (OSD), responsible for the engineering program management of Microsoft's digital advertising products. The advertising products and their associated platform marketplaces power the company's multi-billion dollar advertising business and include search, display, video, gaming and mobile advertising as well as tools for advertisers and publishers. Previously within OSD, Taneja led a global engineering team responsible for Bing and MSN product search.

In earlier roles, Taneja led Microsoft's small-business efforts within the Microsoft Business Division. During his six years there, Taneja was general manager responsible for the engineering of the small-business product line including desktop and hosted suite of Microsoft Office small business services.

Before joining Microsoft, Taneja was with Digital Equipment Corp., where he was responsible for desktop and open systems products and technology solutions. Taneja also worked for several years at Wipro Technologies.

Taneja holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Jadavpur University, India, and an MBA from Washington State University. Source

Vyomesh Joshi Board of Director at Yahoo ! Inc

Vyomesh Joshi
Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company

Mr. Joshi has served as a member of our Board since July 2005. Mr. Joshi has served as an officer of HP since 2001 including as Executive Vice President of HP's Imaging and Printing Group since 2002. Mr. Joshi served as Chairman of Phogenix Imaging LLC, a joint venture between HP and Eastman Kodak Company, from 2000 until May 2003. Mr. Joshi holds a Master's degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University.

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K. Ram Shriram at Amazon DOT com

K. Ram Shriram
Board of Director at Google Inc.

K. Ram Shriram has served as a member of our board of directors since September 1998. Ram has been a managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures, LLC, an angel venture investment company, since January 2000. From August 1998 to September 1999, Ram served as Vice President of Business Development at Amazon.com, Inc., an Internet retail company. Prior to that, Ram served as President at Junglee Corporation, a provider of database technology, which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. Ram was an early member of the executive team at Netscape Communications Corporation. Ram is also on the board of trustees of Stanford University. Ram holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Madras, India.

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Nikesh Arora at Google inc.

Nikesh Arora

Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer

Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations, as well as marketing and partnerships. Since joining Google in 2004, he has held several positions with the company. Most recently, he led Google’s global direct sales operations. He also developed and managed the company’s operations in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets and was responsible for creating and expanding strategic partnerships in those regions for the benefit of Google’s growing number of users and advertisers.

Prior to joining Google, he was chief marketing officer and a member of the management board at T-Mobile Europe. While there, he spearheaded all product development, terminals, brand and marketing activities of T-Mobile Europe. In 1999, he started working with Deutsche Telekom and founded T-Motion PLC, a mobile multimedia subsidiary of T-Mobile International. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, Nikesh held management positions at Putnam Investments and Fidelity Investments in Boston.

Nikesh holds a master’s degree from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern University, both of which were awarded with distinction. He also holds the CFA designation. In 1989, Nikesh graduated from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

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