CHICAGO: The Association of Indian Pharmacists in America (AIPHA), held its Annual Diwali Party on Saturday, October 19 in the Meadows Club to celebrate the upcoming holiday season.
Rupesh Manek spoke about NIPA’s goals and intentions which are to be dedicated to the construction of networking opportunities, the development of relationships and the promotion of our cultural heritages for pharmacists of Indian origin in the United States by ways of interaction through common forum.
NIPA was launched this year and is still in its infancy. The members involved with NIPA have made huge strides thus far and look to the future with high hopes. NIPA will, for example, function as a buying group.
AIPHA has formed a buying group that does not charge members a fee and returns all annual rebates to members.
Saturday’s event began with booths of different demos and business enterprises presenting their products, explaining different queries. Noteworthy booths were from Cardinal Health; H. D. Smith; Nipro Diagnotics; Best Computer systems, Inc.; Collossal Health; Micro Merchants System; Windmill Vitamins; Script Pro; NIPA-National Indian Pharmacists Association; H & H Wholesale; Amneal Pharmceuticals etc.
The program began with a beautiful dance. Dhristi presented a mind blowing program encompassing an array of Classical, Bollywood and Salsa dances with Madan Kulkarni serving as the announcer. Snehal Bhavsar next invited speakers Steve Lawrence of Cardinal Health, Bill Bodin of HD Smith and Shannon Rivero of Amneal Pharmaceuticals to the stage to speak briefly. Swati Dandekar, who announced that she would be running for US Congress from the 1st Congressional District in Iowa, spoke briefly.
Additionally, Gary Prestor was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Dedicated Service to profession of Pharmacy by Harish Bhatt.
The evening ended on a high note as the multi-talented singing sensation Babul Supriyo entertained the audience with a selection of recent Bollywood hits, Tagore classicals and old favorites. He stole the limelight with his grand performance, many felt.
Asian Media USA
