Indian cultural performances were on display at an ‘Indian Heritage Night’ during a basketball game between Long Island Nets and Delaware Blue Coats, at the Nassau Veterans Coliseum, in Long Island, New York, on February 27.

The meet was attended by the Deputy Consulate General of India in New York Shatrughna Sinha.

The audience observed a 30-seconds silence in the memory of the martyrs of the recent terror attack at Pulwama in Jammu & Kashmir.

In his address to the gathering, the Deputy Consul General of India said that it was a great venue to showcase rich heritage of India.

“This kind of activities makes our relationship stronger,” said Sinha.

At the game, regional folk dances of India and Bollywood dances were performed by children and women. There were performances by Arya Dance Academy, and Nartan Rang Dance Academy. There was also a performance by the winner of the 2018 Miss Teen Bharat New York, Kahini Chauhan.

“It is central to our core value system as the Long Island Nets to be ‘More Than A Game,’ and to provide a platform of diversity and inclusion for our community,” said Alton Byrd, VP of Business Operations, Long Island Nets. “We are pleased at the success of our first collaborative effort to bring Indian Heritage Night to life at a Long Island Nets game for the first time ever.”

At the meet, Indian American activist Sudhir Vaishnav was honored for his contribution to the community.

The event was organized by Dilip Chauhan, President, New York South Asian Chamber of Commerce, along with co-chair Raj Shah, and several members of the local community: Hiren Chauhan, Sreedhar Shanmugam, Hitesh Patel, Amita Karwal, Dr. Sheetal Desai, Bina Kothari, Roopam Maini, Ragini Srivastava, Dr. Himanshu Pandya, Farah Vaswani, Jay Shah, Mahavir Chavda, Neil Trivedi, Rajeev Chaudhary, Raksha Parekh, Sanjay Sura, Sudhir Vaishnav, Roopa Sridhar, Rajeev Modi, Rizwan Querishi, Rajiv Mody, Harry Malhotra, and Swati Vaishnav.