The Indian Overseas Congress has honoured three non-resident Indians, including Pavan Varma, the Director of Nehru Centre in London, for their outstanding contribution to the community.
The Non Resident Indians' body awarded gold medals to Varma, Sonjoy Chatterjee, managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank, United Kingdom and Dilbagh Singh Chana, Member of the Order of the British Empire, president of Sikh Temple Ramgarhia Sabha at Southall, London on Thursday night.
Indian High Commissioner to Britain Kamalesh Sharma presented the medals at the function organised to celebrate India's 59th Independence Day. After bringing about a transformation at the Nehru Centre, the cultural hub of the Indian High Commission, during his three-year stint, Varma leaves for New Delhi next week to take over as the Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Prominent among those present at the function included Punjab minister Avtar Henry, Minister for Press and Information at the High Commission, Kuldeep Singh Bharadwaj, Mayor of Hounslow Darshan Singh Garewal and IOC (UK) Chairman Manjit Chatterjee, who, as vice president and head of the ICICI, was responsible for many of the strategic initiatives undertaken by the group, thus transforming it into a technologically enabled diversified financial services group from a financial institution.
Dilbagh Singh Chana, who served as chairman of the Ealing Race Equality Council for four years, was awarded an MBE for services to community relations in the Borough of Ealing in January 1999.