Indian diaspora meet to be held in Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 28: The fifth "Pravasi Bharatiya Divas" will be held here during January 7-9 next year.

This is for the third time that the all-important meet of the Indian diaspora is being held in Delhi. The annual meet was held once in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi told mediapersons here today that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would inaugrate the Divas, while President A P J Abdul Kalam would present the various NRI awards. The award winners would be selected by a committee headed by Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi would also attend the inaugural ceremony.

The Delhi Government and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) would collaborate with the OIA ministry for organising the event, at which nearly 2000 delegates are expected to partcipate.

Mr Ravi said the focus of discussion this time would be education of children of NRIs, especially of those from the Gulf countries, problems of Indian women in foreign countries, Healthcare and NRI investment.

He said the parliamentarians of Indian origin would interact with the MPs. Regional sub-groups would discuss matters relating to their region. Likewise, NRIs from each state would get an opportunity to discuss among themselves the issues concerning their states. Chef Ministers of respective state would participate in these discussions.

Mr Ravi said he would submit a report to the government after the meet so that the government could take necessary measures to implement the decisions taken at the meet.

Asked if the OIA ministry had originally proposed to hold the fifth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Kochi in Kerala, Mr Ravi said "Kerala does have a claim. We think think of its choice next time."

Mr Ravi said the government woud highlight the role of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) in building India's image across the world. A two-hour discussion would be held on the opening day of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to evaluate the extent of involvement of NRIs and PIOs in this image building process. It would also focus on deliberating on the potentials of GOPIO to accelerate different spheres of development activities.

He said the Indian diaspora, participating in the Divas, would be requested to involve themselves in the revamping of the education infrastructure in India. A breakout session would also look at how to address and satisfy the diaspora's educational requirements by focusing on the revised scholarship scheme and the proposed PIO university.

Mr Ravi said there would be a total four plenary sessions, each of them discussing on Challenges of Development in the global context, Development Challenges of the states : Partnership opportunities, The Resource Hurdle for Development and Leveraging technology for Development.

The session on ''Challenges of development in the global context'' would look at the development roadmap for a globalising India, in the broadest sense of the term.

The plenary on ''Developmental challenges of the states : partnership opportunities'' would explore ways of harnessing the partnership opportunities, especialy with the help of the human and financial capital that is not resident in India, but is of Indian origin.

The participants of the session on ''The resource hurdle for development'' would discuss on how to get US 1.5 trillion dollar of capital investment over the next five years which would be mandatory to maintain an eight per cent growth.

Mr Ravi said the Investment Commission of India also estimates FDI requirements of 72 billion US dollars for the same period.

The last session would deal with ''Leveraging technology for development.'' The major point of discussion would be on how could India leverage the knowledge skills of its diaspora and How to build the technological infrastructure of India? On the first day, there would be simultaneous breakout sessions dealing exclusively with the problems of the NRIs in the Gulf, Canada, Europe, South, South East and East Asia and Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific, US and Carribbean.

Mr Ravi said a budget of Rs nine crore has been earmarked for the event.

UNI