– NEW YORK The American India Foundation raised over $1.35 million at its annual Spring Awards Gala at the Sheraton New York on May 10. Chanda Kochhar, the managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank from India, and John B. Veihmeyer, chairman and CEO of KPMG LLP from the United States, were honored at the gala for their service to the community, a press release from the foundation said.

Eight Indian-Americans who were among this year’s Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipients were felicitated May 12 at a ceremony on the island in New York. Peter Bheddah, Ravishankar Bhooplapur, Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, Dr. Leena N. Doshi, Dr. Surendra V. Jain, Hasu P. Shah, Rajendra Singh and Dr. John P.

A funeral was held May 4 for a college student from New York drowned in the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica last month. Ravi Thackurdeen, who studied at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, had been reported missing on April 29 after being pulled out to sea while swimming off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, according to midhudsonnews.com. His body was found May 1. Family and friends attended the funeral in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will attend a summit of NATO leaders in Chicago this weekend, the Pakistan Embassy in Washington said on Tuesday, ending speculation Islamabad might be excluded from the high-level talks on Afghanistan's future.

Former telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja was on Tuesday granted bail by a special court in the 2G case, television reports said. Raja has spent the last 15 months in prison. The scandal was over the alleged below-market-price sale of lucrative telecoms permits bundled with airwaves, which the Comptroller and Auditor General of India estimated to have cost the government as much as $34 billion in lost revenue.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has again been denied a visa to visit the United States, will address nearly 10,000 Gujaratis through a live video conference on May 19 as part of Gujarat Day celebrations in Secaucus, N.J. This will be the third consecutive time that Modi will reach out to the expatriate community via video link, organizers said. Apart from the main event, organized by the Swaminarayan Temple in Secaucus, N.J.

– TRENTON, N.J. Amid chants of “Free Dharun Ravi” and “We Want Justice,” more than 200 people gathered outside the statehouse here May 14 to show their support for Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student convicted of bias intimidation for spying on his gay roommate Tyler Clementi. Ravi is scheduled to be sentenced May 21 and faces 10 years in prison and possible deportation to India.