Malhotra, Others Receive ICC Community Service Award
Saved under Community, Current Stories
Tags: Baytown, Clear Lake, Cypress, Desi news, Greater Houston, Houston, Houston Desi news, India, Indian American community, Indian News, Indians in America, Indo-American News, Katy, NRI, pearland, south asia, South India, Sugar Land, Texas, USA
STAFFORD: At its celebration of India’s 68th Republic Day, held at the Stafford Civic Center, the India Culture Center handed out Community Service Awards to five people who were singled out for their dedication to helping the community over the years and for their remarkable accomplishments.
The five award winners were Leonard Scarcella, Mayor of Stafford and the longest, continuously serving mayor of a US city for 47 years; Harshad Patel, a founding member of the ICC, Hindu Worship Soceity, Gujarati Samaj and India House; Dr. Sunanda Nair, an internationally acclaimed performer of Mohini Attam dance; Anju Mittal, an artist who uses gold, silver and semiprecious stones in her Tanjore style of paintings and Jawahar Malhotra, Publisher of Indo American News. Mittal and Scarcella received etched glass plaques, while the others received a framed painting of the Indian map set to the national tricolors, made by Mittal.
Jawahar Malhotra has been a Houston resident since January 26, 1969 when he arrived to attend the University of Houston after completing his High School in Teheran, Iran. As his father was a Indian Foreign Service Diplomat, he grew up in London, UK; Karachi, West Pakistan; Teheran, Iran, Bern, Switzerland and Bucharest, Romania. Additionally he has lived in Paris, France and Singapore, visited over 40 countries and speaks 8 languages – Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Farsi, French, German, Spanish and English.
Malhotra received his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and also a Masters in Biomedical Engineering, both from the University of Houston. He has worked as a Consulting Engineer, most recently building huge airports, sports stadiums and arenas for many universities nationwide.
While in high school, Malhotra was the editor of the school’s biweekly newspaper and later in private business, he produced a biweekly newsletter for the British West Indian Airline. His love for writing propelled him, to join founder Dr. K.L. Sindwani, as a partner along with Pramod Kulkarni and Koshy Thomas to formally launch Indo American News, the first and oldest weekly newspaper in the Southern US servicing the South Asian community for 36 years. He has subsequently become its publisher and continues to produce the weekly community news source with Kulkarni and partner Vanshika Vipin Varma.
In those 36 years, Malhotra has written thousands of community news stories, interviews and business stories and has produced the popular “Kya Nayi Khabar” cartoon strip as well as worked with his mother Shakuntla Malhotra to produce her immensely popular Mama’s Punjabi Recipes, now in its fourth year. He has been the anchor of the popular TV show, Asiana Television, which IAN produced and aired on Channel 48 for four years in the late 90s. He has also produced the bimonthly newsletter for five years covering the 880 homes in his west Houston subdivision.