North East India Investment Conference @ NewYork Today
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may have discreetly decided to stay away from US President George W. Bush at his ranch in Crawford and during this annual season of summits in the Big Apple, but it is not preventing his government from going into overdrive to woo America.
India is employing a pioneering new strategy in this courtship of the US: it is offering the Northeast to Americans for investment and tourism.
The chief ministers of Sikkim,Assam, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur will all be in New York on the same platform on September 26 to court America.
Also taking part in the same initiative will be the deputy chief minister of Meghalaya, the industry ministers of Assam, Nagaland , and the information technology ministers of Meghalaya and Assam.
The programme is Organised by the Ministry for the Development of the North Eastern Region (DONER) in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry, the North East India Investment Conference would be to provide information on investment opportunities in the North Eastern States of India and facilitate interactions with the 8 States located in the Region.
In a sense, if any collective decision-making on the Northeast has to be taken within the Indian government during that week, it will be done in New York.
The chief guest at this Northeast India Investment Conference here will be the man who controls the purse strings for the development of the region: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.
On the corporate side, the effort will be anointed by Sunil Bharti Mittal, the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which has put together the event.
Conspicuously absent from this region-wide initiative is Tripura, which is ruled by the CPM.
Americans are not wasting any time speculating on why no one — neither a civil servant nor a bureaucrat — from Tripura is taking part in this programme.
On the corporate side, the effort will be anointed by Sunil Bharti Mittal, the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which has put together the event.
Conspicuously absent from this region-wide initiative is Tripura, which is ruled by the CPM.
Americans are not wasting any time speculating on why no one — neither a civil servant nor a bureaucrat — from Tripura is taking part in this programme.
The four-day event was kicked off with the minister for overseas Indian affairs, Vayalar Ravi, acting as master of ceremonies at a mini-Pravasi Bharatiya Divas at the spectacular location of New York’s Chelsea Piers, which are built on four historic piers on the Hudson river waterfront.The function was also attended by Sikkim Chief Minister Dr. Chamling.
