Social Programming

Global Leadership & Diplomacy Forum

We hosted Lakshmi Puri, who served as an Assistant Secretary-General at the UN and ran UN Women as Deputy Executive Director, for an afternoon with high school students from around Southern California. The conversation covered diplomacy, advocacy, women's leadership, and how students can actually get into public service.

Aparna Hande helped coordinate the event alongside our team.

Who came

• Lakshmi Puri · Former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women
• Dr. K. J. Srinivasa · First Consul General of India in Los Angeles
• Nitesh Patel · Mayor of La Palma (CA), YCTT advisor
• Zeel Ahir · Councilmember, Artesia (CA)

The fireside chat

Eshan Patil and Saivi Sodhi, a junior at Fairmont Prep, sat down with Puri and asked her about working in international diplomacy, what leadership looked like for women in the UN system, and what advice she'd give students who want to go into public service. Omkar Siddeswaran and Aditya Komaragiri handled outreach for the event.

"A major part of our work is making civic institutions feel genuinely accessible to students who might not normally see themselves represented in these spaces. Representation matters, but access matters just as much, and young people need real opportunities to participate and speak their minds."

Swallowing the Sun

The second half was about books, with a focus on Southern California authors. Puri talked about her first novel, Swallowing the Sun, which follows women's lives during India's independence movement and draws partly on her own family's history. The title comes from a verse by the poet-saint Muktabai, where an ant swallows the sun. The book is being adapted into a multi-season web series.

Covered by Bay Area Telugu Times, September 2026. · Back to Social Programming