Desi Talk

www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know I ndian American neurologist and oncologist, Dr. Sumul N. Raval, a top- notch physician and a community leader, has been selected as a Top Doc- tor in 2025, the 13th consecutive year that the NJMonthly magazine has listed him on its Jersey Choice list. Starting from 2013 to 2025, Dr. Raval has been at the top in his specialty in Jersey Choice, and highly regarded the world over. According to his biography available on Garden State Neurology and Neuro- Oncology, Dr. Raval is a board-certified neurologist and world authority on brain tumors, and “one of few neuro-oncologists in private practice in United States.” He is the founder and director of the David S. Zocchi Brain Tumor Center at Monmouth Medical Center – New Jersey’s first and most comprehensive facility specializing in brain tumors, part of Dr. Raval’s dream to begin a state-of-the-art brain tumor center in New Jersey, for the local population. “Today, the program draws patients from across the country and as far away as Sweden, Russia, Ven- ezuela, Turkey and India,” the gsneurol- ogy.com website says. A graduate of M.P. Shah Medical Col- lege, India, Dr. Raval did his residency at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, and completed his neuro-oncology fellow- ship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NewYork. He has been part of clinical trials to ad- vance knowledge about treatment options for brain tumors, and has published many peer reviewed papers in reputed journals. According to the biography, Dr. Raval is the first physician to present and publish a paper with 100% response rate for most malignant brain tumor called Glioblas- toma Multiforme in the literature. He is a frequent clinical trial investiga- tor and has combined the drugs Avastin® (now FDA approved for glioblastoma) and irinotecan to successfully shrink brain tumors. He also had lead a brain tumor vaccine trial, the biography notes. Dr. Raval was presented with the GBM Heroes Award (Glioblastoma Multiforme) during the 21st Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology held in Scottsdale, Arizona organized by CURE® magazine. This conference drew 3,600 Neuro- Oncologists, Neuro-Surgeons, Radiation Oncologists, Neuro-Radiologists and Sci- entists from 55 countries, and is the most comprehensive neuro-oncology meeting in the world, according to the biography. He has written several chapters in books about neuro-oncology, including on long term complications of Covid 19. Dr. Raval is a staff Neuro-Oncologist at Jersey Shore University Medical Cen- ter since 2003 where he introduced the Neuro-Oncology field to Meridian Health. He also practices at Community Medi- cal Center, where he served as Secretory of the Medical Staff and serves as a Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurolo- gy. A diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, he is president of Garden State Neurology & Neuro-On- cology, with offices located inWest Long Branch and Toms River. He is the immediate past president of Monmouth and Ocean Medical Society, Chapter of Medical Society of New Jersey, and was elected as Treasurer of Medical Society of New Jersey in 2022. Apart from being chosen by his peers in New Jersey for 13 years in a row as Jersey Choice Top Doctors He has received sever- al previous awards during his career. Dr. Raval has served in top positions of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, AAPI, the second largest medical professionals’ organization after the American Medical Association. Dr. Sumul N. Raval Declared Top Doctor By Peers For 13th Consecutive Year By a StaffWriter New Educational Technologies Needed In Teaching Hindi: World Hindi Diwas Commemoration At The UN -UNITED NATIONS T here is a need to integrate new technologies in the education of Hindi language to make it easy for the Indian Diaspora to learn it, although the government of India is making major efforts to popularize Hindi globally, said Chief Guest, India’s Minister of State forWomen and Child Develop- ment, Savitri Thakur. Thakur was speaking at theWorld Hindi Diwas commemoration held February 2, 2026, organized by the Permanent Mission of India, attended by government of India officials and diplomats, the UN officials, other diplomatic corps, Hindi scholars and members of the Indian Diaspora. Important attendees included India’s Deputy Perma- nent Representative to the UNYojna Patel, Permanent Representative of Nepal Lok Bahadur Thapa, Permanent Representative of Mauritius Milan Jaya Meetarbhan, and Deputy Permanent Representative of Guyana Trishala Simantini Persaud. This was the third annual celebration of theWorld Hindi Diwas at the UN organized by the Permanent Mission of India to the UN. The first Hindi Diwas was commemorated in November 2024, with the second commemorated in October 2025. The UN has designated January 10 as theWorld Hindi Day or Vishwa Hindi Diwas. Initiated by the Government of India, this day was first established in 2006 to promote Hindi as a global language and commemorates the day Hindi was first spoken in the United Nations General Assembly in 1949. India celebrates its own national Hindi Diwas on a separate day. Speaking on the occasion, Deputy Permanent Rep- resentative of India, Yojna Patel, outlined the successful efforts by the Permanent Mission of India to include Hindi in the list of non-official languages at the UN. She elaborated on India’s partnership with the UN Depart- ment of Global Communication on the webcast of UN News in Hindi, and India’s contribution of $8 million to popularize Hindi at the UN. Speakers from the Caribbean countries and Nepal gave credit to Hindi language in preserving and promoting culture in their countries. The Hindi at UN Project which was renewed ear- lier this year for five more years, uses Hindi for public outreach through social media, newsletters and a UN News website to connect with millions of Hindi-speaking people worldwide. The Hindi social media network boasts around 137,000 total follow- ers, while accumulating over 3.7 million views across all channels. Under this project, the UN Hindi news website has attracted approximately 346,000 views from 193,000 active followers, with a large portion of the audience between the ages of 18 and 34. The UN has also launched a Hindi WhatsApp channel. Last year, at the commemora- tion in October 2025, representa- tives frommember states had acknowledged the contribution of Bollywood Films in giving expo- sure to Hindi language and Indian culture, thus popularizing Hindi in countries including Russia, Egypt, Africa and Latin America. Hindi is also popularized through educational institutes includ- ing Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Texas, Oxford and Cambridge, and in Stockholm which offer degrees and courses in Hindi. Hindi has been integrated into education in Mauritius since 1954 with various institutions including the Ramayan Center, the Hindi Prachar Sabha and TheWorld Hindi Secretariat continuing to promote the language. Other countries including Guyana, Suriname, Trini- dad and Tobago and Nepal also have local educational institutes offering education in Hindi at primary and secondary levels in schools, along with special courses in Hindi. Students from these countries also go to study Hindi in India. In Nepal, Hindi is the mother tongue of nearly 100,000 people and at least 25,000 use Hindi as a secondary language in his multilingual and multicultural country. By Archana Adalja PHOTOS:COURTESY PERMANENT MISSION OF INDIATOTHE UN From left, Permanent Representative of Mauritius Milan Jaya Meetarbhan, Deputy Permanent Representative of Guyana Trishala Simantini Persaud, India’s Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur, India’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Yojna Patel and Permanent Representative of Nepal Lok Bahadur Thapa. India’s Minister of State for Women and Child Development, Savitri Thakur, speaking at the World Hindi Diwas celebration at the UN on February 2, 2026. PHOTO:@gsneurology.com Dr. Sumul N. Raval. 5 NATIONAL AFFAIRS February 13, 2026