The an­nu­al Di­vali Na­gar was launched with a spec­tac­u­lar open­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Ch­agua­nas on Tues­day that was broad­cast live around the world us­ing Blink Broad­band tech­nol­o­gy.

Host­ed by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), the grand open­ing cer­e­mo­ny fea­tured the light­ing of a sym­bol­ic deya, the launch of the NCIC theme song by vo­cal­ists Rooplal Gird­harie and Nir­mala Ses­narayan, cul­tur­al per­for­mances by the pop­u­lar bmo­bile Shiv Shak­ti Dance Group, the Un­touch­ables Tas­sa Group and the Pre­ma Shak­ti Dance Group, bha­jans by the Tul­sa Trace Hin­du School Choir and Suri­name's ghaz­al singer Kries Ramkhelawan.

The two-hour cer­e­mo­ny closed with a dance act fea­tur­ing Lord Shi­va.

NCIC pres­i­dent Dr De­ok­i­nanan Shar­ma, in his open­ing re­marks, thanked blink | bmo­bile and the oth­er spon­sors for their con­tin­ued sup­port over the years."It is with your as­sis­tance that the NCIC was able to make great strides in the re­vival of Hin­du-Trinida­di­an cul­ture over the 50 years and the NCIC will con­tin­ue to raise the stan­dards of In­di­an cul­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.

TSTT ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, hu­man re­sources, Harigob­in Jhinkoo said it was a plea­sure for Blink Broad­band to pro­vide the state-of-the art tech­nol­o­gy that al­lowed the Di­vali Na­gar open­ing to be broad­cast live around the globe.

Jhinkoo said: "Next year, we too are ob­serv­ing a ma­jor mile­stone as TSTT will ob­serve its 25th year of ex­is­tence and we will con­tin­ue to demon­strate in clear­ly tan­gi­ble ways our com­mit­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go as we con­tin­ue to ex­pand ICT ac­cess in the na­tion, thus en­sur­ing af­ford­able ac­cess for all."