The First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford adorned the Indian Heritage Centre UK’s
Sankranti Utsav celebration.
Indian Heritage Centre UK celebrated the popular winter harvest festivals jointly under the
banner ‘Sankranti Utsav’ on 20th January 2024 at the Stanwell School, Penarth, Cardiff.
Many eminent personalities including the First Minister of Wales, His Majesty’s Lord
Lieutenant, the High Sheriff, and other dignitaries graced the event, which were also
attended many hundreds of people. The Sankranti Utsav has been marked as a ‘festival of
unity and heritage’.
The event was kickstarted by a welcome speech from Adv Tripti Megeri, the Founder and
CEO of the Indian Heritage Centre (IHC) UK. Tripti greeted and thanked all and explained
that the main objective of the IHC UK is to create cultural awareness at the grassroots level.
IHC UK aims to encourage young adults’ participation in cultural and ecological activities,
promotion of community health and wellbeing, social harmony and empowerment of
women.
The First Minister of Wales, Rt Honourable Mark Drakeford in his address congratulated the
IHC team and added that “Wales is proud to welcome people from different cultures, faiths
and backgrounds and we want them all to call Wales their home. We are a nation of
sanctuary. The Welsh Government is committed to promoting diversity and is working on its
ambitious Anti-Racist Wales action plan”.
His Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant Mrs Morfudd Meredith, High Sheriff Professor Jean White
CBE, Alderman Ramesh Patel and Councillor Jasmine Chaudhary
addressed the lamp lighting ceremony as the guests of honour. Later, the Honorary Consul
of India in Wales, Captain Raj Aggarwal OBE congratulated the IHC team and conveyed his
best wishes.
Mr Mark Frost (Cricket Wales), Mr Karsan Vaghani (Hindu Council of Wales); Mr Gurumit
Singh Randhawa (Sikh Council of Wales), Mr Hari Patel (Sanatan Dharm Mandir), Dr
Rajkumar (NHS), Dr Kale (Bhakti Dham), Commander Suzanne Lynch (UK Navy), Major Peter
Harrison (British Army), Ms Marcia (South Wales Police) and various community leaders
attended the event.
The significance of the ‘Sankranti festival’ was informatively narrated by Miss Kushi Shetty
and the programme was meticulously anchored by Dr. Neetha Byrappa, Dr. Sunil Pulapaka,
Miss Riya Kale and Miss Shivani Kothegal. The event was fun-filled with ‘Bharatanatyam’ and
‘Bollywood’ dance performances, staged by Rekha Natya Academy (Cardiff), Samarpan
Nrithyala (Cardiff), Kavitha’s Bollywood Beats (Swansea), Sinjini Dance group (Cardiff), as
well as an assortment of music from 90’s Bollywood melodies, sung by ‘Euphonics’ band.
IHC received numerous appreciation for its successful maiden-stage event. CEO Tripti
specially thanked IHC committee members Dr Deepak Megeri, Dr Girish Kothegal, Dr Govind
Menon, Dr Ravindra Ravindran, Mr Hiren Joshi, and Dr Sunil Pulapaka for their efforts. IHC
expressed gratitude to all guests, artists, sponsors, supporters and well-wishers, who graced
the occasion and requested continued support for its future endeavours
