American Telugu Association (ATA) celebrated “Americalo Adapaduchulu” to mark the International Women’s Day on Sunday, March 02, 2014 in Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Houston, and Washington D.C. The celebrations will take place in Philadelphia on March 14, in Chicago on March 15, in Austin on March 30, and in Hyderabad on March 29.

Dallas: American Telugu Association (ATA) celebrated “Americalo Adapaduchulu” to mark the occasion of International Women’s Day on Sunday March 02, 2014 at Mayuri Indian Restaurant, Irving, TX. The event was supported by TANTEX, a local DFW Telugu organization. ATA’s mission is to assist and promote literary, cultural, educational, religious, social, economic, health and community activities of the people of Telugu origin as well as to promote exchange programs for students, scientists, and professionals of Telugu origin between North America and India.

Arvind Reddy Muppidi, ATA DFW Regional  Coordinator extended a warm welcome to over 100 attendees in spite of a busy weekend with various other events and bad weather in town. Arvind introduced ATA team who were present at the event; Ananth Reddy Pajjur, Secretary & Board of Trustee, Satish Reddy, Board of Trustee, Dheeraj Akula, Standing Committee Chair- By-Laws, Srikanth Konda Standing Committee Chair- Spiritual followed by introduction of TANTEX team by president Mr. Vijay Mohan Kakarla.

Smt. Sre laxmi Mandiga of TANTEX introduced the speakers. All speakers gave excellent presentations on relevant topics about women.  Mrs. Kavitha Akula, who is a practicing attorney in DFW area for past 7 years, gave a presentation on financial management for women in the community. She explained the importance of being financially independent and be aware of all aspects of finances.  She said it is also important to discuss financial matters with spouse periodically. Dr. Nirmala Vallurupalli, a practicing Ob-Gyn physician elaborated on women’s health issues and advised on how to maintain good health for women of all ages. She reiterated that women should never take their health for granted and make sure every woman spend some time to take care of her own health. Dr. Sandhya Gavva, past ATA president and advisory board member talked about Stress Management and said that managing stress is all about taking charge of one’s own thoughts, emotions and the way one deals with situations and circumstances. She also explained remedial measures including exercise and yoga. A question and answer session followed later where speakers gave clarity to audience questions.

The highlight of the event was a fun filled Jeopardy Game, a special woman version of America's favorite television game. Participants were divided into 4 groups which competed against each other.  Smt. Jyoti Jasti and Smt. Krishnaveni Seelam were the judges who kept the scores, identified the winning group and also the most enthusiastic participant.

The informative and fun filled event came to an end with vote of thanks by Dr. Sandhya Gavva to the distinguished speakers, the audience for their attendance, volunteers, Mayuri India Restaurant for providing tasty food, excellent facilities and great meeting ambiance, Satish Punnam for his help with the Jeopardy game and finally media sponsors; Desiplaza.us, 6TV, TV9, TV5, for providing great coverage of the event. DFW ATA team invited the Dallas community to the ATA Conference and Youth Convention to be held Philadelphia from July 3-5, 2014.

Atlanta: What a night!!!Saturday night has been zubilient with an enourmous crowd of around 600 people supporting ATA Cultural day &International Womens day. Your support has boosted our energy a lot and had given much more confidence to ATA team and had already set our standards to a much higher level.

Indeed it has been success to the ATA team. All of the seats got occupied even before our scheduled timeon Saturday evening and the event kicked off to START
by our beloved ATA Founding member Mr.Hanmanth Reddy, Mr Karunakar Madhavaram(President), Mr. Karunakar Asireddy(Past Convenor & BOT), Mr Jaganmohan Rao(Past conference coordinator), Mr Narender Chemarla(Treasurer), Mr. Kiran Pasham(BOT), Mr Kalyan Anandula(BOT), Mrs Prashanthi Asireddy(Chair-Womens committee) lighting the candle supported with Gana Nayaka song performed by local singers.

 It is so fortunate to celebrate International Womens days on Saturday focusing the celebration ranged from celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women, and the celebration were just not limited to expression of love towards women. To mention, ATA has been one of the first of its kind of organazations to celebrate, recognize the efforts & importance of the role that our women play in building our society.

This is indeed depicted in ATA' President Mr. Karunakar Madhavaram speech. Ms Prashanthi Asireddy is the queenpin to celebrate International Womens day. President  had shown his expression of THANKS towards donors for donating a whooping 200K Dollars showing donors support towards next conevention to be held at Philadelphia on July 3rd,4th&5th of 2014. ATA team has been so grateful to the donors, in particular to be mentioned are Murali Sajja, Kiran Pasham, Karunakar Asireddy, Murali Reddy and others. Donors had valued our work and supported us a lot. So it follows that the results are the best way to show our appreciation towards your contributions.

Cultural events are another huge success for the ATA team to brag about. Events ranged from classical, semi classical, western & folk. Kids had shown their share of energy and made this event more sightful. Once again women had dominated the event with thier skills & confidence depicted during the fashion show coordinated by Suresh Karothu. It was an amazing show.

Everyone present at the event have been mesmarized by the presence and voice of Ms. Anjana Soumya accompanied by male singers Sandeep, Nihar, Srinivas Durgam & Janardhan Pannela. Anjana has been supportive through out the event, knew what everyone wants and has been succesfull in getting the crowd to dance to her tunes.

Coverage has been done by TV5 letting everyone knew about the event back in India. This event wouldn't have been success without the support of ATA Executive Committe & board - Karunkar Madavaram(President), Narendar Rao Chemarla(Treasurer), Hanumanth Reddy(Founding member), Kalyan Anandula(BOT), Karunakar Asireddy(BOT), Kiran Reddy Pasham(BOT). ATA is greatful to ATA' media partner TV5, TV9 and all print media, Audio Visual support provided by Srinivas Durgam and regional coordinators Anil Boddireddy(RC), Raghu Banda(RC), Nanda Chatla(RC), Vikram Sudhini(RC) & Venkat Veeraneni(RC). ATA thanks Taste of India for the great food.

Once again ATA thanks to the Committee members, great volunteers, each and every member & participant who had made this event a grand success.

Minneapolis: Brigham Young Quote says “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation”. American Telugu Association (www.ataworld.org) of Minnesota Chapter celebrated International women’s day on March 8th, 2014 at Hamel Community Center. ATA MN called nominations for eminent personalities from twin cities. The Achievement Award is intended to recognize women individuals and organizations run by women for achieving excellence in their fields, promoting the interests of the American-Asian-Indian community in Minnesota, and advancing understanding between the Indian community and the community at large. ATA-Minnesota Chapter received nominations for outstanding work by Indian-Americans in the following categories: Charitable Work/Volunteering, Business excellence, Public Service/Government, Dedicated service to the women development, Excellence or innovation in their chosen field (like Arts... example Music), dedicated service to the community, Special contribution in leadership and mentoring.  Huge nominations were received and event committee identified distinguished women power from twin cities for ATA IWD Achievement Award considering their exceptional service.

ATA MN invited Indian renowned actress Mrs. Laya as a Special Guest for this event. The entire exclusive women event was effectively coordinated and lead by ATA MN cultural secretary Mrs. Jyothi Repala. At the event begin, Mrs Shambhavi recited the profile of Dr. Subhashini Mahipathi and invited Dr Subhashini on to the podium as a special guest for the event followed by Mrs Laya. Mrs. Jyothi invited distinct guests together of the event to light the lamp as an auspicious begins followed by two prayer songs and traditional dance.

Event committee arranged red carpet welcome to all the distinguished guests and they were asked to seat specially designated chairs in front row. As part of felicitation, Mrs. Shambhavi presented the dignitary profile to the audience and invited following distinguished women on to the dais: Ms. Apekshya Panda, Mrs. Molu Mathew Thachil; Ms. Carol Keers, Mrs. Suma Anaparthi, Mrs. Kamala V. Puram,Mrs. Padmaja Dharnipragada, Dr. Kumud Sane, Mrs. Nirmala Rajasekar, Mrs. Madhavi Isanaka, Mayor  Elizabeth Weir, Hamel City Mayor.

Special guests of the IWD event,  Dr Subhashini and Mrs. Laya honored them with a flower bouquet and presented the IWD Achievement award to all the eminent women personalities.   All the Achievement award winners gave wonderful message to the gathering. Audience cherished with their striking, spellbound speeches. The event hall was excited with continuous applause for a while. This entire award ceremony went for about 100 minutes with awesome messages and discussions from women power.  Event committee arranged snacks for all and Cultural Secretary Jyothi made arrangements for cultural events. Twin cities local artists showed their talents in their own fascinated filed of interest and presented wonderful performances in the honor of dignitaries and achievement awardees.   During cultural event grand finale Mrs. Laya also participated on the request of cultural secretary and she was invited as a Maha AstaLakshmi of Astha Lakshmi concept. Thus the whole event went all very well and each participant and dignitaries expressed their happiness the way in which the event went on that evening.

As part of concluding remarks, event cultural secretary Mrs. Jyothi Repala, introduced the men power behind this entire event planning, execution.. On behalf of ATA event committee, Mahipathi Nagendar gave a nice and beautiful message as a conclusion.