Richa Gangopadhyay - Miss India USA 2007

Richa Gangopadhyay has been crowned Miss India USA 2007 in a beauty pageant held at Royal Albert's Palace, Fords in New Jersey, USA.

Rediff.com reports

Richa, 21, is in her final year at the Michigan State University majoring in Dietetics and Nutrition and enjoys dance, music and movies.

She also bagged the title of Miss Photogenic, and was crowned by the outgoing queen, Ayushka Singh.

Richa will represent USA in the 17th Annual Miss India Worldwide Pageant, also organised by IFC, to be held on February 23, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Neha Multani, 22, of New York and Nisha Palvia, 18, of Georgia were respectively declared first and second runner up among 24 contestants from various parts of the country, in the gala event attended by over 600 people.

The panel of judges included Dr Hemant Patel -- President of AAPI, Tariq Khan -- Vice President of Marketing and Diversity at Nationwide, Praveen Kumar -- Counsel Political and Community Affairs at the Indian Consulate, Sudha Shekhar -- choreographer and classical dance exponent, Dr Lorenzo Ottaviano -- patron of Indian performing arts and Janice Miller -- internationally acclaimed singer.

Opendra Bill Narayan - Scientist Dies

Opendra Bill Narayan an Indian-American Scientist who was renowned for his research work on AIDS, has died due to cardiac arrest.

KansasCity.com reports:

AIDS researcher Opendra “Bill” Narayan hoped to create a vaccine that would help millions of poor people around the world fight the deadly virus.

Narayan, 71, a senior member of the University of Kansas Medical Center faculty, died Monday following a heart attack.