A special thanks to all those that attended the Holi gathering. We had scrumptious food, mingling among the Biradari, several visitors and a fun game of spring time cricket. As always, it is the participation of our members that makes it special.

This Sunday the RANA NJ Chapter Executive Committee will be meeting to discuss many important topics. After our meeting, we will send you updated information regarding the following:
1. RANA Camping Trip. For more information, please contact our revered Camping Convener Hardev Bhai at
[email protected]

2. RANA-NJ Youth Ambassador Program
3. Picnic/Blood Drive Event
4. Mahatma Gandhi Community Service Day
5. RANA NEC initiated Business Conference
6. Leadership of the next NJ Executive Committee.
Please let us know if you have knowledge of internships that would benefit the Chapter Youth/Young Adults.

There are 2 PAID summer internship positions RESERVED for our chapter Youth/Young Adults. Here is some information:
1. Must have completed sophomore year of High school and not older then those entering their Junior year of college this fall.
2. Based upon the candidate’s background, experience and interest, tasks will range from general clerical duties, social media marketing, website design, marketing, accounting and website content writing. There will also be opportunities to shadow/network senior executives.
3. Located in Belle Mead, NJ 08502 and will be for a duration of 4 to 6 weeks.

Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions regarding these positions. For those that are interested in applying, please submit resume with cover letter.
Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
NJ Chapter President

The RANA – NJ Chapter Holi Celebration is less then a week away. Celebrate with your Rajput friends. In addition to festive colors, we will have awesome food catered including:

Chaat
Chicken Biryani
Vegtable Biryani
Papard
Raiyta
Mango Laasi
Mithaii
Traditional snacks and drinks

We need to provide a final head count to the caterer. So please let us know if you will be attending if you have not done so already.

Here are some more details:

Date of Event: April 16, 2016

Time of Event: 1PM to 5PM

Venue: Johnson Park Grove#5, River Road, Piscataway NJ 08854 If coming from Landing Lane Bridge, make your first left.

Attached please find a flyer for the event. You can register at www.RANA-NJ.org
We are getting set to organize the RANA-NJ Youth Ambassador program for community service projects in India. Currently we have 6 RANA young adults/youth that are interested. If your child is in High School or College, please let us know if there is interest in participating in a RANA NJ sponsored community service project in India. Once we have a final number of those that are interested, we will provide more details. Please note, this is the LAST opportunity for you to convey interest to us.

We have many exciting announcements that will be coming your way soon including:
1. RANA Business Conference; Tentatively the Weekend of July 16th

2. Camping July 4th. You should have received information from our Camping Convener, Hardev Bhai. Sites are limited, so sign up soon!

3. RANA Family Convention. Avan Bhai Sahaab of the NY chapter is the Convener and this will be an Epic event.

AND MUCH MORE……..

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Regards
Rajiv “Manu” Singh
President
RANA NJ Chapter

As spring approaches, I hope you are all enjoying the beautiful weather. Recently Raj Shekhar sent out the RANA NJ Chapter Holi announcement. For more information and registration, please visit www.RANA-NJ.org

For those interested, we hope to arrange for our members to donate blood prior to the Holi gathering and will get the information to you soon.

We are getting set to formally commence the RANA Youth Ambassador Program. We have decided to open the participation to RANA young adults that are currently in College in addition to those that are in High School. Openings are limited, please let us know if your child is interested in participating.

Regards,
Rajiv Singh (Manu)
RANA NJ Chapter President

Namaste,

We are happy to report that the RANA NJ organized New Year Celebration, the DHAMAKA was a huge success. It was the support of RANA members that made this event so special. Here is some data:

• Not including support staff, total of 233 attendees.
• Approximately 90 were RANA members.
• 86 were not associated with RANA. They registered from our advertising on Facebook and sites such as Sulekha. We had over 8,000 unique visitors to our DHAMAKA (created by NJ EC) website.
• 59 were friends of RANA members that were not Rajputs. We probably could have sold out the event with just friends and family of RANA members since we got an additional request of 100+ registrations after we were sold out 3 days prior to the start of the event.
• From gate receipts we had income of approximately $13K and this covered our expenses.
• We had $9,000 in additional sponsorship pledges. We have already received $6,500. We should hit our projected goal of $10K.
• 100% of our guests had a positive or neutral experience. We made sure it was a classy party and everyone enjoyed. The PAID support staff included 6 babysitters, 2 Bartenders, 1 Dishwasher, 5 servers, 1 cook, 1 catering manager, 2 bouncers (including an off duty police officer) and 2 Photographers. The entertainers included a DJ, 2 Comedians and a Dhol player. This was a total of 24 people to make sure everyone was well taken care of. The # of 24 does not include the NJ EC volunteers.
• We raised $326 for ASHA with a raffle.
• Approximately 25 young adults were present and enjoyed the party very much.
• We hope the DHAMAKA will be an annual fund raising event. The infrastructure and intellectual capital is in place.

The 10K we raised will serve as seed money for the RANA NJ Chapter Youth Ambassador Program (RYA). The NJ EC is in the process of finalizing the program. Here is a “draft” (subject to change) of the program:

We are happy to announce the RANA – NJ Chapter Youth Ambassador Program. We will be sending 5 RANA youth to India for a community service project.

The goals of the RYA program are:

. Youth will learn the gift of giving.

. A stronger value proposition to membership.

. Benefit a worthy cause.

. Youth will have future affinity for RANA-NJ, India and camaraderie for

members of their team.

. And much more.

RANA NJ will pay for the airfare for each youth and grant a $1,000 scholarship for College Education. We will make arrangements for the travel, lodging and meals. Parents of the RYA will be responsible for any expenses in excess of $1,000. Each RYA will be required to do as follows:

1. Fundraising individually and as a group. Goal is for each RYA to raise $1,000 to donate to (Name of Organization TBD). Mentors will be available to assist.

2. Keep a journal of their activities and experiences.

3. Jointly create a minimum of 10 minute or so video journal of the experience from beginning to end.

3. By the end of August, submit their journals and a 500 word essay in digital format to RANA NJ.

More details:

A. The trip will be in July.

B. Parents are welcome to join the fun.

C. There will be RANA NJ chaperons.

D. It will be a total of 3 weeks or so in duration.

E. There will be a one week cultural trip through Rajasthaan.

F. Priority will be given based upon age to those entering 12th grade in September 2016, then to those entering 11th grade and so on.

G. Each participant will earn a college Scholarship of $1,000 and be commended as a “RANA NJ Scholar”.

We will request other RANA chapters to have a similar program.

Please note, the above is subject to change. If you are interested in sending your child, by January 21st, please send us your child’s name, age, name of school, and the grade they are currently in. Of course, you are not bound to send your child until details are finalized.

Respectfully,
RANA NJ Chapter Executive Committee

RANA NJ Chapter Members, Future Members, Family and Friends,

Pranaam!

It has been a delightful privilege to serve you this past year. As we look forward to serving you in 2016, please note the following by your NJ EC:

Hosted a very well attended Picnic event with Masala Dosa.

Supported The Dharma Conference and had a booth there.

Organized a youth volunteer initiative that prepared 400 meals for the benefit of the Trenton Soup Kitchen.

Sent Post Cards to over 1,000 Rajputs encouraging them to join RANA and or be more active in RANA.

Hosted the Diwali event at Arsha Vidya Gurukulum. RANA members contributed $1,500 in donations.

Created a Chapter website.

Created a Chapter facebook site.

Contributed to 3 charities.

Re Created an Electronic version of the RANA membership directory.

Added 3 new families to membership.

Hosting The New Year Dhamaka. This will be an annual fund raising event for RANA NJ Chapter. We supported the careers of 2 young Rajput professional comedians and photographer. Supported the Elks Non profit organization and raised 10K for the RYA program listed below.

Juniors hosted Ski Trip to Camelback; cancelled due to lack of snow.

Added 3 junior and youth members to executive committee as members at large.

Members of NJ EC were active in neighboring Chapter events such as Picnics of NY and DC Chapter.

Positively supported NEC and attended meetings as requested.

Ended the year with a slight increase in cash balance in checking account.

In 2016, in addition to the usual events, we will add a Navratri Dandiya Raas to be open to all including non Rajputs. This was suggested to us by past President Chandrikaji. We will try to recruit her to help spearhead the organization of this event. We hope to invite a famous Gujurati film star from India to MC/Sing this event.

We have launched the RANA NJ Chapter Rajput Youth Ambassador Program. Our youth will be doing community service projects in India starting this summer. More information to follow.

We have already started recruiting the next NJ EC so that there is continuity and the established positive momentum continues. Anand Singh and Jayshreeji have agreed to be a part of the upcoming team with full support of the existing Team.

We invite your comments and suggestions. Thank you so much for your support and participation.

Respectfully,

The RANA NJ EC:

Cultural Secretary: Raj Shekhar Singh
Treasurer: Jayshree Mahida
Fundraising Chair: Mukesh Parmar
Membership Chair: Jay Gohil
General Secretary: Raj Bimal Singh
Vice President: Chetan Puwar
Junior Member: Ambika Singh
Junior Member: Auyshree Mahida (Shree)
Youth Member: Ananya Singh
President: Rajiv Singh (Manu)

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