Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Shri Naren­dra Mo­di has of­fered Cari­com coun­tries con­ces­sions rang­ing from ex­ten­sive tech­nol­o­gy train­ing and as­sis­tance to a re­gion­al foren­sic cen­tre, fer­ries, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and agri­cul­ture help, and train­ing for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and women crick­eters.

Mo­di was ad­dress­ing Cari­com lead­ers at the sec­ond Cari­com-In­dia Sum­mit in George­town, Guyana, yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and a team are at­tend­ing the sum­mit, which fo­cus­es on strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion in agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty, health and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, sci­ence and in­no­va­tion, among oth­er ar­eas. 

Yes­ter­day’s sum­mit launch was ad­dressed by Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hammed Ir­faan Ali, and Cari­com chair­man Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell.

In­dia’s Mo­di ad­dressed Cari­com in Hin­di, which was trans­lat­ed by fe­male trans­la­tors. Ac­cord­ing to those trans­la­tions, Mo­di not­ed that in the last Cari­com-In­dia sum­mit, par­tic­i­pants iden­ti­fied sev­er­al new and pos­i­tive ini­tia­tives and progress is be­ing made on these. 

To strength­en fu­ture Cari­com/In­dia co­op­er­a­tion, Mo­di de­tailed pro­pos­als re­gard­ing sev­en pil­lars based on the let­ters “C-A-R-I-C-O-M”. These in­volve ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, agri­cul­ture/food se­cu­ri­ty, re­new­able en­er­gy in­no­va­tion, crick­et, ocean econ­o­my/mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, and med­i­cine.

Mo­di not­ed that through schol­ar­ship, train­ing and tech­ni­cal help, In­dia had con­tributed to ca­pac­i­ty build­ing in Cari­com states. He said he was now propos­ing an ad­di­tion­al 1,000 slots for high-tech schol­ar­ships from In­dia over the next five years. Mo­di al­so pro­posed ex­pand­ing In­dia’s Tech­ni­cal De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre in Be­lize so it could be used by all Cari­com states. 

He spoke of work­ing to cre­ate a foren­sic cen­tre for the Cari­com re­gion. He al­so sug­gest­ed cre­at­ing an on­line por­tal for Cari­com coun­tries for tech­nol­o­gy, law and ed­u­ca­tion cours­es, sim­i­lar to In­dia’s own por­tal. 

Not­ing sar­gas­sum sea­weed was a very big prob­lem in this re­gion af­fect­ing the ho­tel/tourism in­dus­try, Mo­di said, “In In­dia, we’ve de­vel­oped tech­nol­o­gy to make fer­tilis­er us­ing this sea­weed. This tech­nol­o­gy can not on­ly help you to solve this prob­lem but al­so in­crease crop yields. In­dia is ready to share all these ex­pe­ri­ences with Cari­com coun­tries.”

Mo­di spoke of ac­cel­er­at­ing In­dia’s Small/Medi­um En­ter­pris­es tech­nol­o­gy mis­sion in ar­eas such as re­source map­ping and agri­cul­ture in Cari­com states. Da­ta col­lect­ed from In­dia’s satel­lite, which is be­ing launched by 2027, will be shared with all coun­tries, es­pe­cial­ly glob­al south states.

Mo­di said crick­et was a very im­por­tant link be­tween In­dia and Cari­com. He not­ed the var­i­ous games and spe­cial at­tach­ment to crick­eters from the West In­dies. The T20 match­es al­so in­creased the at­trac­tion of In­di­an crick­eters to the Caribbean. To fur­ther pro­mote not on­ly good re­la­tions but al­so fe­male em­pow­er­ment, Mo­di added, “We can pro­vide  train­ing for young women crick­eters from each Cari­com na­tion.”

Row­ley in his ca­pac­i­ty as head of Cari­com’s crick­et Sub-Com­mit­tee will chair a meet­ing of that team and par­tic­i­pate in Cari­com’s sec­ond re­gion­al sym­po­sium on vi­o­lence as a pub­lic health is­sue.