The Times of Canada organized a Diwali Mela (Fest) on the 3rd November 2013 at York Centre Surrey, BC. Radio India, the media partner of The Times of Canada for this mela, broadcasted the whole event live.
Diwali is the festival lights, it signifies the triumph of good over evil and it brings different faiths cultural communities together. It is also called the festival of giving and The Times of Canada truly justified it by giving 12 gifts, worth more than $30,000, to the draw winners.
Mr. Satish Kumar from Golden Ears Insurance Services Ltd., the main sponsor of the event declared the event open. Mr. Vinay Sharma from The Times of Canada, Devinder Benipal and the team from Radio India and Prof. Avtar Singh Virdi hosted the event. The representatives from all the sponsors of the event, which included Surrey Honda, Thind Properties, Save on Foods, Delta Rise, Advanced Genomics, OneFlatFee, Carpet Gallery, Karan Goyal, S.W. Media, extended Diwali greetings to the gathering of thousands. Bollywood actor Rajat Bedi was also present on stage. Famous Punjabi singers Balvir Boparai and Maqbool entertained the audience.
Karamjit Singh Deol, resident of Surrey, won the first prize which was a brand new Honda Civic LX 2013 sponsored by Surrey Honda. Navodit Chumber won the second prize, a diamond ring sponsored by A.C.C. Jewellers. Mandeep Kaur Tak won the third prize, an LCD TV sponsored by Mayur Arora from OneFlatFee Realty. The other 9 prizes were, a Samsung Galaxy Tab sponsored by Delta Rise, an iPad sponsored by Thind Properties, a digital camera sponsored by Karan Goyal, an Acer tablet sponsored by Golden Ears Insurance Service Ltd., a stove sponsored by Jindal Appliances, an area rug sponsored by Carpet Gallery a gift basket each by Save on Foods, Advanced Genomics and S.W. Media.
The winners of these prizes included, Manjit Singh Athwal, Santa Singh Mattu, Kuljit Kaur Johal, Sukhwinder Kaur Gosal, Harjinder Singh Gill, Dalbir Kaur Rai, Ramaljit Khaira, Gurdawar Singh Dhaliwal and Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal.