BOOM!

The DHAMAKA is almost sold out. This is a courtesy email to RANA members
that have not yet paid and registered. The price has been increased to $85
for adults (was $65) and $55 (was $35) for those under 12. We only have 24
tickets left before we sell out at our target capacity of 250. There will
be no walk ins allowed. This is a prepaid event.

This event will fund the RANA NJ Chapter Rajput Youth Ambassador (RYA)
Program. We will be sending our youth to India for a community service
project AND provide each RYA a $1,000 College scholarship. We already have
$10K in pledges for this incredible program. Hardev Bhai is investigating
an opportunity for our youth to Volunteer at an Orphange for HIV positive
children in India.

Stay tuned for more information regarding the NJ Chapter RYA program.

Best wishes to your family and you during this festive time of year. Hope
to see you at the DHAMAKA……..BOOM!

Regards,
RANA NJ EC

Please click here. to view the Flyer for the exciting upcoming RANA Diwali gathering.

We hope to see you there.  Information can also be found on the www.RANA-NJ.org website.

Congratulations to all the youth that participated in preparing 400 meals for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.  Please see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm6MHYPSLfE

We had our first new RANA member that joined us as a result of visiting our booth at the Dharma Conference.

In an effort to build awareness of RANA and increase membership, with the assistance of RANA youth and young adults, 1,500 post cards were mailed to Rajputs in NJ and PA that are currently not RANA members.

RANA-NJ Chapter is inviting our young adults and youth to provide us proposals for community service in India.  We hope funding for the projects will be provided by RANA-NJ Chapter.

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend at Arsha Vidya Gurukulum.

Regards,
Rajiv Singh
NJ Chapter President
732-648-1754

Pranaam!

Congratulations to Parth Parihar and the facilitators of the Dharma Conference. It was a display of pure spiritual provocation. I sincerely appreciate RANA members that participated in this priceless, historic and memorable event. I will communicate with the Hindu Students Council and see what RANA can do to perpetuate this wonderful event.
So proud to see RANA listed: http://www.dharmaconference.com/index.php/supporting-organizations
I have attached a few pictures from the Dharma Conference. They can also be seen on the Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/apanarana/?ref=bookmarks

Long time RANA Members Devendraji and Rachitaji are the proud parents of Parth. They are the creators of Hindi USA and have touched the lives of thousands of Americans of Indian origin. Ironically they had a booth that was located across from ours. We had a wonderful exchange regarding how children become high achievers. I find spirituality to be a common denominator among high achievers. Our youth are a reflection of our Karma. After all, “Monkey see, Monkey do”. If we do not emphasize the importance of our religion, culture and heritage, our children will never embrace the same. It is absolutely imperative for all of us to participate in activities associated with Dharma.
Our booth had a sign “RANA”. Many people mistook this for the Rajasthaan Association of North America. Other then printed material, we didnt have anything that displayed the word “Rajput”. So it was hard for delegates of the Conference to see we represented the Rajput Association of North America. I mentioned this to RajShekhar. Before I could complete the sentence, he was on the internet ordering a sign from Staples. Rajshekhar is an outstanding Cultural Secretary. We are very fortunate to have him in RANA and on the NJ EC.
My sister, Sadhna Didi was so mesmerized by the conference and Rajiv Melhotra, she is seriously contemplating supporting Mr. Malhotra’s activities. I purchased a book that every Hindu should read, particularly Rajputs. “Breaking India”; GET IT NOW. It is available on Amazon. I look forward to supporting Rajiv Malhotra in the future and will be participating in a meeting to do so within the next few weeks.
Next to our booth was Lead India 2020 www.Li2020.org . This is an organization associated with Abdul Kalam. The President of the organization requested to have the contact information for the President of RANA. We let him know that the RANA President would be available later and we would make the introduction. After some time, the introduction was made. I will elaborate further……
We had the privilege of having a long discussion with Prakashsinh Uncleji. He shared with us his vision and his ideas to assist others. He often referred to the Karma of his Father. Uncleji has done so much for others after seeing the Karma of his Father. Perhaps this is: “Monkey see, Monkey do.”

After meeting the President of Lead India, Uncleji humbly mentioned that he was sponsoring his Village school through Abdul Kalam’s organization Lead India 2020. He went on to mention how great Abdul Kalaam was.

We learned much from Prakashsinh Uncleji, paramount: Rajputs were made to help others. I am grateful for his eloquent explanation of “Kshatriya”. Someday I would like for him to speak about the word “Kshatriya” and the Karma of Kshatriya to our general body. If possible, I would like to meet the person that explained it to him. Interestingly Uncleji learned about the exact meaning of the word at the very first RANA convention from a Rajput Scholar speaker.
The NJ Chapter EC will be having a meeting with our families this Sunday. We will be discussing many important matters including an extremely exciting Diwaali event. We have an amazing EC that is highly functional. On a personal note, I thank the NJ EC for their contribution and being a pleasure to work with.
On a lighter note, for obvious reasons, the food was 100% vegetarian at the Dharma Conference. The medicine will be 3 meals per day of Mutun, Murga and Muchalli.

By the way, after seeing Prakashsinh Uncleji’s karma, this Monkey (me) is also contributing to Lead India 2020. I have sponsored the school of my Father’s Village, Dowtha. It is the school that my Father attended until the age of 10. Thank you Prakashsinh Uncleji.

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
President RANA NJ Chapter

Namaste!

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful holiday weekend. Next week there is a very special event that will be taking place. It is the Global Dharma Conference. You can find details at http://www.dharmaconference.com/ I have also attached a poster for the event.

I am so proud of Parth Parihar. Parth is one of our RANA Youth and he is a key facilitator of this wonderful event. You can find a very thoughtful message from Parth on our website: http://www.rana-nj.org/community-service/

RANA will be supporting Parth and his wonderful initiative. We have taken the “Dharma Pledge” and contributed $1,008. We will have a booth and we need volunteers to assist with the booth. Please let me know if you are interested in volunteering at our booth.

I strongly encourage you to attend this awesome 3 day event. If you cant make it for all 3 days, you can elect to go for a morning, afternoon or evening session. There is something for everyone. Please do let us know if you will be attending. Our sister chapters have also sent a similar message to their members.

Since RANA is a supporter of this event, all members will receive a 20% discount. At registration, enter RANA20 and you will receive a 20% discount.

On a personal note, Vibha and I will contribute $1,000 to support this event as Benefactors. There are many levels of support. If you are interested the information is on the website.

Camping pictures are up on the website. You can see pictures at http://www.rana-nj.org/camping-2015-4/ A special thanks to Hardev Bhai for organizing the pictures.

I hope to see you at the Dharma Conference.

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
NJ Chapter President

The RANA NJ Chapter picnic was a huge success due to the strong participation of our membership. Thank you for participating. The link for the youtube video is Click here for Viedo

A special thanks to our executive committee especially our Cultural Secretary, Raj Shekhar Bhai and Treasurer Jayshree Ji.

We have so many wonderful activities planned. During Thankskgiving weekend, we will be doing a “Teerth Yatra”. We will start as a group at a Central Jersey Temple, we will go Temple hopping throughout Pennsylvania, go to New Vrindavan in West Virginia, stay the night, come back to the Durga Temple in South Brunswick and sponsor a “lunger” at the Temple. More details to follow soon from our Cultural Secretary, Raj Shekharji.

We are finalizing plans for Diwali and will have details for you soon. The New Years bash is going to be awesome. It will be a formal event and we are flying in talent from Mumbai for entertaining us.www.RANA-NJ.ORG has dates published for the Diwali gathering and New Year Bash. Please mark your calendars accordingly.

We need volunteers for Videos and website maintenance. For website maintenance, we need someone that is comfortable with WordPress.

We have secured a sponsor for the Gandhi Community Service day. Dr. Sunil Singh and Sadhna Singh of Neurology, Headache & Pain Relief Center. Now we need volunteers ages 8 to 18 to prepare the meals. Please send an email to [email protected] if your child/children are interested.

Please subscribe to the RANA facebook group. In the Facebook search field, type Rajput Association and subscribe to the group. Avan Bhai Sahaab of the NY Chapter is managing this group. The link for the group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/apanarana/

I am pleased to announce that our chapter has awarded $100 to Ananya Singh for her community service project. A summary of her project can be seen at http://www.rana-nj.org/community-service/ If you have not done so already, please consider donating. The amount you give is not important. Its important that we support the community service initiatives of our youth. We need to teach them the importance of giving.

Please do let us know if your child is pursuing a community service project. In order to receive RANA-NJ support, an essay is required that summarizes the project and the reason it is important to the child. After the project is complete, an essay will be required sharing the details of the completion.

Please be sure to tell other Rajputs about RANA. Increasing membership is always very important especially since there are so many wonderful initiatives by RANA.

I have some excited news that I will be sharing with you soon. In the meantime, please see.
http://www.dharmaconference.com/

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
NJ Chapter President
732-648-1754

Pranaam to All the Attendees of RANA NJ Picnic 2015,

It was nice to have you all at the RANA Picnic 2015 which took place at Cheesequake State Park Matawan NJ on 08/22/2015. The gathering was so good that it’s unexplainable. Once again we would like to thank you all for joining the Picnic and making it a Grand Success. We had almost 120 people who attended the picnic which is a record in 30 years history.

One more thing special about this Picnic that it was 100% vegetarian picnic with no alcohol served, and everybody enjoyed the food.

We were blessed with the presence of our founder members of RANA.

Special thanks to JB Singh Uncle, Pushpa Aunti, Dhirajsinh Solanki and auntiji whose presence was graceful for the Picnic.

We would like to say thanks to our guests from the neighboring chapters New York and DC. Special thanks to Prakashsinh,&  Manabaji from NY Chapter and Ajay Singh from DC Chapter.

In this picnic we had some new members who attended the picnic:

• Naivedya Sengar
• Nirmalsinh Vaghela
• Dalveer Rajput
• Ananya Asula
• Harsha Rathod

We would like to thank Jayshree Mahida and Hardevsinh Mahida for organizing the picnic so beautifully.

We would like to invite you all for the upcoming events:

• Food Donation to Homeless Shelter
• Retreat at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam (we would like our youth brigade and the kids specially to attend this.)
• Tirth Yatra USA
• Diwali
• New Year Bash

We update our website www.rana-nj.org on a regular basis, so all are requested to check the website for our regular updates. If you are being missed from our e-mails please forgive us and you are requested to update your information through our website so that you can be on our e-mail list.

Thank you All,

Regards,

Raj Shekhar Singh

Cultural Secretary RANA NJ Chapter

Namaste!

If you have not done so yet, please register for our Chapter Picnic that will be taking place this Saturday on our website, www.RANA-NJ.org  Lots of fun activities are scheduled and delicious Dosa will be served.

Rajshekhar Singh (our Chapter Cultural Secretary) and I had a great time attending the NY Chapter Picnic.  The weather was beautiful and it was fun hanging out with RANA biradari for the afternoon.  As always, they welcomed us with smiles and LOTS of scrumptious food.

During the car ride, Rajshekhar and I were able to brainstorm lots of cool ideas for upcoming RANA-NJ events.  Some of these included a Teerth Yatra to several Mandirs for our seniors as well as our members of all ages, a retreat for our youth to Arsha Vidya Gurukulam and a youth community service day.  We will be sending you more information regarding these ideas after discussion with our Chapter EC.

Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday is on October 2.  Our youth are invited to participate in a community service event in honor of Mahatma Gandhi.  They will be preparing meals to feed 400 homeless people on October 4^th from 1 PM to 5 PM.  This will be for our youth ages 8 to 18.  Details can be found on our website www.RANA-NJ.ORG  If your child is interested, please send me a return email or email to [email protected]

Our fabulous Camping Convener Hardev Bhai has made it official…..the location will be Watkins Glen in the spectacular Finger Lakes region of New York.  Preliminary information is available on our chapter website.  So please block the dates on your calendar.  More information will follow from Hardev Bhai.

Soon we will be having a new NEC in place.  Best wishes to them as they embark on their 2 year term.   We will certainly do all we can to help them transition into their new roles and our support will be unconditional.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful Summer season.  On June 14th, the New Ambassador of India to the US, His Excellency Arun Kumar Singh was welcomed at a gathering in Potomac, MD.  Ambassador Singh is a highly accomplished Rajput.  The key coordinator of the event was past NEC President, Th. Sunil Singh of the DC Chapter.  Representing RANA, sponsors of the event included Ajay Singh (present President of the DC Chapter), Sunil Singh,  Pradeep Sengar of the DC Chapter and Dhiraj Solanki Uncleji.  Several RANA-NJ chapter members were present including Dhiraj Uncle, Kishor Kumar Singhji, Mahvir Singhji, Hardev Bhai, Our Cultural Secretary RajShekhar Singh, My Daughter Ambika and myself.  Other dignitaries in attendance included 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi and celebrated IP Officer Kiran Bedi.  I was very proud to see a strong representation from RANA and our chapter.

Yesterday Yash, Ambika and I attended the DC Chapter Picnic.  They had wonderful food and cheer.  We enjoyed meeting our neighbors.  I received the names of a few Rajputs in New Jersey that are not members and I have reached out to them.  Incoming NEC President Prakashsinh Chauhan Uncleji was present.  He briefly shared his vision regarding RANA’s future.  We look forward to Uncleji’s leadership of RANA.

Please keep in mind that the RANA Youth Convention will be this weekend, Several of our Chapter’s youth with be there including Kuldeep Yadav (Riddhiji’s son), Shree and Om Mahida, my children Ambika and Yash.  Registration is still open at www.ranayouthconvention.com  Please encourage your families’ youth to participate.

Please be sure to check out the new website www.rana-nj.org.  Several of our members have already registered on the site.  Once you register, you will be able to see the information of the other members.  We hope to have the entire RANA directory online soon.

RANA (n addition to our NJ facebook page) does have a facebook site with several hundred members.  Please request to join the group.  Go to facebook and search for Rajput Association of America.  Be sure to request to join the group, dont just like it.

All the information for our Picnic on August 22nd is online.  Feel free to register online.  Payment is also accepted online.

The upcoming events are on the website so please be sure to mark your Calendars for Diwali and the New Year’s eve bash.

Pictures from the camping trip, Ambassador welcome event and DC Picnic will be up on our website soon.  Please feel free to send me pictures so I can put them on the website.

I will be attending the NY Chapter Picnic on the 8th of August.  Please let me know if you are interested in joining me.
Lots of very exciting announcements will be coming your way soon. Looking forward to seeing you at the Picnic!

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
RANA-NJ Chapter President.

It was an action packed camping adventure in Barryville, New York. Activities included:
· Campfire-Always one of the highlights of camping. We all enjoyed cooking, eating and chatting around the campfire. On the last night, we had the traditional antakchariy sing a-long. It was amazing to see how many talented singers there were.
· Fishing-We caught a huge Bass. We cooked the catch on the camp fire and it was delicious. Thanks to Anandji for filleting it and seasoning it with the assistance of Jayshreeji.
· A hiking trail to the top of the mountain that was a challenge for both hikers and runners.
· Zip-lining-This was especially enjoyed by younger RANA members.
· Rafting-Even though the weather was questionable, 48 Rana members participated and we had 8 rafts. Several individuals jumped into the water and swam alongside the raft. There were a couple of people that fell in including my son Yash.

It was wonderful to see old friends and make new friends. Including day trippers, we had over 110 participants including Ajay Singh (and his family), the President of DC Chapter as well as Prakashsinh Chauhan Uncleji with Auntiji from the New York chapter. We also had many past RANA presidents including My Father J. B, Singh, Jawahar Singh Uncleji, SK Singh Uncleji and Chandrikaben.

The food was scrumptious! Rosi Bhabiji made her signature jerk mutton grilled directly on the fire. Thank you to all that collaborated to serve the food including Madhuriji, Chandrikaben, Manjari Bhabhiji, Jayshreeji and Poonamji.

I am pleased to say that nearly all of the officers of the Executive committee participated in the camping trip including RajBimal, RajShekhar, Jayshreeji, Mukesh Parmar and Jay Gohil.

I was particularly pleased to see the large number of Rajput youths. They all enjoyed the trip very much.

Within the next day or so, I will be sending details regarding the upcoming Picnic on August 22nd and the Youth Convention on July 30th to August 2.

On behalf of RANA, I would like to thank Hardevsinh Bhai and Jayshreeji for doing a wonderful job organizing the camping trip. It was their effort and passion that made this trip successful and enjoyable for all.

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
NJ Chapter President

Dear Members of RANA-NJ,

On behalf of the incoming members of the executive committee, I would like to thank the RANA-NJ membership for appointing us for the next 2 years. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to serve the RANA-NJ community and we are honored to do so.

On a personal note, I am very proud to follow the footsteps of my Father, Jitendra Bahadur Singh. Perhaps my tenure will be a personal tribute to him and his passion for RANA.

RANA-NJ has a very strong foundation and we look forward to further building our organization by growing our membership and having gatherings that will foster camaraderie.

Some of our plans are as follows:

• Update and organize the RANA-NJ database. We now have a Word document and we will validate the data.
• Deploy our website www.RANA-NJ.com It will have features such as a calendar of events, storage/retrieval of membership data, communication among members and much more.
• Engaging the youth by having more youth events and launching of the RANA-NJ Youth Ambassador program.
• Maximizing participation of our membership. We have already announced dates of our key gatherings. This will allow our members to block dates accordingly.
• Networking/mentoring for our youth with RANA-NJ members that will enable internships, job and business opportunities. We have many members of RANA-NJ that have influence within their profession and can provide such opportunities.
• When the time comes we will provide a seamless transition to the next executive committee.

Moving forward, a key area of focus must be our youth. After all, the spirit of the founders of our wonderful association was to pass on to our youth the rich tradition and culture Rajputs share.

You have appointed a very strong team and we are enjoying working together. In order for us to be successful, it is imperative that we have strong participation by our members and we know that we can count on you for that.
Sincerely,
Rajiv (Manu) Singh
President; RANA-NJ