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Dear Biradari Members,
Namaskaar!!
I am writing to
you all today because I have decided to run for the
post of President of KOA in
the
upcoming organizational elections. The only reason
that I am standing for the election is my continued
passion to serve our community. I have been serving
our community for the last 16 years in an individual
capacity. But now I believe the time has come for me
to put my individual volunteering experience to use in
serving the community on a much larger scale.
It all started back in
June 1990. I was in Jammu on a personal visit to
attend a wedding. The latest exodus of our community
was fresh; even my parents did not have a place to
live. My curiosity led me to visit one of the
refugee camps that I had read about in newspapers.
During my visit to Jhiri and Talab Tillo camps, I
was shocked and angry - shocked to see our proud
community living in tents under sub-human
conditions, angry at the Muslim terrorists for
terrorizing such a peaceful community, and angry at
the local government and Government of India for
ignoring the plight of its die-hard citizens.
Upon my return to
US, I wanted to do something within my means. I was
myself a struggling professional trying hard to make
both ends meet. First and foremost, I started to
write about our community in the community
newsletters and bulletin-boards, and distributing
copies of Video
coverage that I had recorded to US
lawmakers. This was the pre-1996 period.
My second chapter
of community activism started in 1996 when I used
the new communication medium
of the Internet to counter the disinformation
campaign against our community. At that time, there
were scores of websites owned and managed by
Kashmiri Muslims spreading venom against our community.
I started working feverishly by putting out as much
information on the Internet as was physically
possible. I have scanned over 50 historical books
related to our community and converted those into
thousands of web pages after laborious scanning,
proof reading and editing. It has all been very
manual and time-consuming. I would spend on an
average 5 hours every weeknight and 20 hours over
weekends for several years. And now, I own and
manage about 25 Kashmiri Pandit-specific websites,
covering almost all the aspects of Kashmiri Pandits:
culture, religion, heritage, history, political
beliefs, etc. I have also built websites for several
Kashmir Pandit organizations and their publications,
both here as well as in India.
My involvement with
KOA started way back in 1991 when I became a Chapter
President in Houston. During 1996-2000, under Sh.
Lalit Wanchoo's Presidentship, I developed and
maintained KOA's two websites KOAUSA.Org
and Kashmir-Information.Com,
the latter at the time being the number one site in
Google search on "Kashmir". Sites like
BBC, CNBC, CNN, used to provide links to this site.
To this day, many of these sites are highly rated on
the Internet. In addition to these websites, I
administered KPnet - the first electronic
forum to keep the Kashmiri Pandits connected.
Isaac Newton, in a
letter to Robert Hooke on February 5, 1675, wrote:
"If I have
seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of
giants."
And that is true of
me as well. I have learned a lot from many Kashmiri
Pandit leaders and community
members that I have come in contact with during this
period. I am humbly grateful to each and everyone of
them for their valuable insight, guidance, and moral
support.
At this time, I
would like to request you for your support and vote.
I promise you that I will do my
best, within my means, to live up to your
expectations and deliver the goods with fairness,
honesty and transparency. I promise you that you
will not find me lacking in my enthusiasm to take
KOA to newer heights. If elected as President with
your support, I will draw on the experience of those
who have so honorably served KOA and our community.
With a team of dedicated individuals and fresh
ideas, I want to make KOA a vibrant organization
that the whole community will be proud of. I
personally believe that the best is yet to come.
With so many brilliant minds in our community, many
more resources can be tapped. KOA has evolved, the
membership has grown over the years, and so have
challenges that it must meet. To understand what I
stand for and what our agenda for KOA is going to
be, please spend few minutes of your valuable time
at my website SunilFotedar.Com.
By spending some time at my website, you will also
get an opportunity to know more about me and my
achievements.
I also want to take
this opportunity to thank, from the bottom of my
heart, all those countless individuals who had the
vision to start KOA and to those who have over the
years worked tirelessly as volunteers to bring KOA
to where it is right now.
In conclusion,
Together, we can
build OUR community.
Together we can create OUR destiny.
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