-
By Indrajit S Saluja
Ambassador Binaya Srikanta Pradhan, Consul General of India in New York, in an interview with The Indian Panorama on December 22, 2025, highlighted significant achievements of the Consulate in 2025, including the establishment of new satellite centers in Ohio, New Jersey, and Boston, extension of consular services on weekends and holidays, and improved VFS services. The consulate as of now handles 11 states, with plans to reduce the number to six, once the Boston consulate is fully operational.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview.
TIP: Please share with the readers of The Indian Panorama your achievements in 2025. What you dreamed to achieve? What you have been able to achieve? What you have not been able to achieve? And why you have not been able to achieve, if at all, that was the situation, and what you plan to do in future?
CG: It’s always a pleasure to speak to you and through you to your viewers and readers. But coming to this year, I would say this is the last week, practically, of the year, 2025 and if I look back, this year has been quite momentous when it comes to the consulate services that we provide to the community. On first of August, we started our satellite centers in three new places in this consular jurisdiction. Now we have a VSF satellite center in Columbus, Ohio. We have one in Edison in New Jersey, and we have one in Boston, in Massachusetts. And if you remember, last year when the prime minister came, he announced that soon we will be having a new consulate in Boston. And I am so happy to say that now we have a consulate functional there. We have a consul general. And I would say in a record period of time, we have got a consulate functional over there. But more importantly, we cater to about 2.4 million strong Indian diaspora from here. And in addition to the Indian diaspora, we also cater to the American friends who go to India for tourism, for business, for meetings, and for various other purposes. So the effort has been to provide seamless, best quality service from here. Last year, we started to open the consulate on Saturdays and Sundays for emergency services, and also on other national holidays. This year, we continue to do that, and we worked with the Indian communities across the consular jurisdiction. We held consular camps in each and every state that we deal with. And now, as I said, from first of August, we not only have the satellite centers, but they are qualitatively different. Now, we signed a new agreement across the country, by the way, by which the VFS, which is our service provider, is now providing qualitatively far superior services. They charge $19 across the board for whatever service they provide. For $19 now they are providing improved services in the sense that suppose somebody reaches a VFS center in Edison or in Columbus, Ohio, or in Boston or in New York City, and the applicant has not been able to fill the application, they will help the applicant to fill up the application. If for any reason, the applicant has not got his photographs, or, let us say, photocopies of the documents, then VFS, without charging any additional money, would be providing photographs, would be providing photocopies of the documents. I am happy that 2025 was a very good year in bringing a qualitative improvement in the services that we provide.
TIP: What has been the most significant achievement for the consulate in 2025?
CG: I would say, like I said we as a consulate, deal with, not only the Indian diaspora and the consular requirements. We also deal with the businesses and have economic engagement. We deal with political engagement. I would say the year was quite good. We have reached out to, you know, all the states, to the elected leaders at federal level, to the elected leaders at State Assembly and State Senate level. We look at the sub national cooperation. The governor of New Jersey went to India three months back, and that was the second visit in five years. The governor of Connecticut went to India in February 2025 and now in February 2026 the governor of Delaware is going. So, I would say, in the year 2025 we had two governors from our jurisdiction visiting India. It shows the dynamism in the relationship. It shows how the relationship is playing out in a very successful and positive way, even at state to state cooperation level. Because when Governor of Connecticut went to India, he went to different states. He met the chief ministers he met the business communities. He met the investment community, trading community. Same thing happened when the governor of New Jersey went. He took five universities with him, and all these five universities are having significant number of Indian students. So look at the connect. I cannot imagine another such relationship, where we have such strong people to people connect. I would say 2025 was successful in every sense, in terms of our providing qualitatively better services to our diaspora, to our community, the sub national cooperation, as I mentioned about, the visits of the governors, economic engagement have been quite successful. Look at the investment track, whether we are talking about FDI, whether we are talking about alternate venture capital investment. Recently, $72 billion of investment were announced in last one month only in the artificial intelligence space in India. So we saw Amazon announcing $35 billion investment. We saw Google announcing $15 billion investment. We saw Microsoft announcing their biggest investment in Asia when Mr. Satya Nadella met the Prime Minister and spoke about $17.5 billion of investment. And we also heard about Apple investing. $72 billion investment, just in AI space. That was the same week when the CEO of Intel met Prime Minister. So I would say the economic engagement between US and India is quite deep and quite dynamic. I would say 2025, as I see it, was quite successful in my jurisdiction, from economic engagement to community engagement to political engagement. And if you look at the softer side, like our cultural engagement, people to people connect, was quite good.
TIP: How do you view the contribution of the Indian Americans, the diaspora in promoting these ties between this country and India?
CG: This is quite well known now that Indian diaspora takes the lead when it comes to building the relationship, not only in the softer side of culture, people to people contact, but even in critical areas, whether it is investment, whether it is trade, whether it is scientific, technological collaboration, whether it is political engagement. I think, this community has been playing a lead role and leadership from both sides, both in India and the United States. They appreciate that. So that is what you would see that, like I took the names of diaspora members who are leading technology companies having met Prime Minister, you would find the same thing when President Trump was celebrating Diwali, you would find many of the Indian American community people, tech CEOs, you know, being with him. I think you know they play a very critical role in every possible way.
TIP: And how about the students who have come here to study? They are a sizable number, number one, and also they must be contributing a lot towards better understanding, better relationship between India and the US. How do you view that?
CG: The student community is a is a very important community, because when we talk about the diaspora here today, 5.4 million strong Indian diaspora, most of them came here as students. And they have contributed to nation building of this country. Many of them are going back to India and contributing there as well. And even if they are staying here, both as nationals of India or nationals of United States, they are forming very formidable bridges between our two countries. But let us also not forget the remittances India makes for the education of the student population here People.. It is ‘s to the tune of $21 to $26 billion every year. These students become an important part of the American society. People who go back, they become an important part of Indian society.
TIP: As they say, it’s time to ring out the old and ring in the new , , so let us know your mind. What do you plan to do in 2026?
CG: The new year 2026 , I’m sure would provide us opportunities to intensify our engagement with the community, not only in terms of providing them better services, but also working closely with them for all the objectives, like whether it is promoting cultural collaboration between our two countries, or economic engagement between our two countries, or engaging for scientific and technological advancement, because there are huge complementarities between our two countries and our two economy and scientific communities sitting in New York. When you are dealing with the best of the minds here, whether it is Wall Street, whether it is the universities, whether it is the cultural minds, our job is to find the connect between two sides. Notwithstanding these engagements, the Prime Minister is very mindful about taking care of the Diaspora requirement. So I think you will see in 2026 the consulate having focus on all these things. Through you, I would urge your viewers, your readers, to give their suggestions, give their ideas about how we can improve the services . On the consular side, our effort has been to have zero pendency, whether it is issuing of passports, whether it is issuing of OCI cards, whether it is issuing of visa or any other service, miscellaneous services. And our objective would be to work with the community, with the community groups, community leaders, to provide a service that, you know, people would find hassle free, people friendly, and people would find it accessible. So that is going to be the effort in 2026 .
TIP: I would request you to please give your message for the new year to our readers.
CG: On behalf of the consulate and on my personal behalf, I would wish everybody a Happy New Year. I’m sure the year 2026 is going to bring new dimensions, new opportunities and new success stories of our collaboration, both between our two countries and between our two people. And I am sure the Indian diaspora, the Indian American community, which has been playing a very prominent role in this, would be doing the same. And when it comes to our diaspora here, you know, we would lay special emphasis on friends like you to work with us in making these objectives realities.
