Shas­tri Boodan

In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh is look­ing for­ward to more In­di­ans mak­ing the Caribbean a tourist des­ti­na­tion. Singh's sen­ti­ment came dur­ing his ad­dress on Thurs­day night at a func­tion host­ed in his ho­n­our at the Crowne Plaza ho­tel in Port-of-Spain. He said, "In­di­ans are now trav­el­ling around the world. "I do think the In­di­an di­as­po­ra can emerge as a ma­jor glob­al net­work for the tourism and trav­el trade.

"There are many peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin on the US main­land who would be hap­py to come to these is­lands for busi­ness and hol­i­day. There are win-win pos­si­bil­i­ties in this kind of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty," he said. Singh said he was hap­py to par­tic­i­pate in the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing. He said the Com­mon­wealth en­com­pass­es coun­tries around the world where peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin have made a mark. "When I meet peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin around the world I cel­e­brate our plu­ral­ism as much as I cel­e­brate our great civ­i­liza­tion­al in­her­i­tance," he said.

"In­di­an­ness is like a large and all-en­com­pass­ing banyan tree. It of­fers shade to every­one who comes in search of it. "It has deep roots at home and branch­es that in turn go to great dis­tances and strike roots there. "In­dia is on the move and is reach­ing out to the world. In reach­ing out to peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin, we are al­so reach­ing out to the world. You are, for mil­lions of In­di­ans, the most vis­i­ble sym­bol of our own glob­al­i­sa­tion."