Andhra Pradesh   

12 Chief Ministers to attend Pravasi meet

Special Correspondent

Rajasekhara Reddy reviews arrangements for the event

HYDERABAD : Chief Ministers of 12 States will attend the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Divas at the state-of-art Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) here from January 7 to 9.

Apart from the host, the Chief Ministers of Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Punjab, Bihar and Chattisgarh would take part, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, said after reviewing the arrangements for the event with heads of various departments on Monday. Philip Logan, General Manager, HICC, said seventeen international conventions had so far been booked at the 6,000-seat centre located near HITEX.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would inaugurate the divas and incidentally, the centre has a seating capacity of 6,000. Ahmed Khatrada, a contemporary of Nelson Mandela, would be the chief guest and President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, would confer the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awards on fifteen distinguished overseas Indians on the last day. A highlight will be a round-table on `India - the knowledge powerhouse'.

Gurcharan, Joint Secretary of the Ministry, said 2,110 NRIs and foreign delegates were expected. Spot registration had started at Greenlands guesthouse and Shilpakalavedika.

Website launched

The divas is expected to create a special purpose vehicle that will facilitate investments of overseas Indians, a collaborative research institution and an e-based Indian Diaspora Knowledge Network to serve as a platform for facilitating global information exchange and networking between overseas Indians and India. A special website "www.pbd2006.org" together with event brochures and its logo has been launched.

The State Government would collaborate with the Ministry of Overseas Indians in a project to establish this network. This would be an Information and Communication Technology driven platform seeking to leverage the knowledge resources of the overseas Indians in State-level projects in the social sector.

`Diaspora philanthropy' would be the thrust area of the event. In fact, five of the nine plenary sessions of the event are dedicated to discussing diaspora partnership.

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