Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo says she is “deeply and over­whelm­ing­ly” dis­ap­point­ed that she is un­able to at­tend the 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Di­vas (PBD) con­ven­tion in In­dia, where she is this year’s chief guest.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo ex­pressed her sen­ti­ments when she joined the event vir­tu­al­ly, to ad­dress In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di, oth­er min­is­ters of In­dia’s gov­ern­ment and thou­sands of par­tic­i­pants at the PBD event in the state of Odisha, In­dia, yes­ter­day. 

Every two years, thou­sands of mem­bers of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra re­turn to their moth­er­land for the three-day con­ven­tion. The event is tak­ing place in Odisha for the first time in his­to­ry, from Jan­u­ary 8–10. 

It pro­vides the In­dia gov­ern­ment with an im­por­tant plat­form to con­nect and en­gage with the In­di­an di­as­po­ra and en­able them to in­ter­act with each oth­er while cel­e­brat­ing the di­as­po­ra’s con­tri­bu­tion to In­dia’s growth. A large num­ber of In­di­an di­as­po­ra mem­bers from over 50 coun­tries are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the three-day con­ven­tion, in­clud­ing from T&T. 

In a vir­tu­al ad­dress to the packed con­ven­tion, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo apol­o­gised for not be­ing there, cit­ing cir­cum­stances that pre­vent­ed her from at­tend­ing in per­son. How­ev­er, she said, she was ex­treme­ly ho­n­oured to be the chief guest and to be con­ferred a Pravasi Bharatiya Sam­man Award.  

The ho­n­our is usu­al­ly con­ferred up­on non-res­i­dent In­di­ans, per­sons of In­di­an ori­gin, or or­gan­i­sa­tions run by them.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo joins sev­er­al oth­er T&T na­tion­als of In­di­an de­scent to re­ceive the award, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ters Bas­deo Pan­day and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Win­ston Dook­er­an and for­mer MP Lenny Saith. 

Re­call­ing T&T’s ties to In­dia through in­den­tured im­mi­grants, the Pres­i­dent said it was heart­en­ing that peo­ple of In­di­an de­scent helped to build a stronger T&T.
She said while In­dia and T&T shared the same chal­lenges that de­vel­op­ing na­tions did, they had the ad­van­tage of be­ing able to draw up­on the rich lega­cy and de­ter­mi­na­tion of courage and de­ter­mi­na­tion of per­sons of In­di­an de­scent.

“In do­ing so, we have been able to cre­ate a more stronger and re­silient na­tion,” she said.

In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di was moved by Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s words, say­ing she left an im­pact by even ac­knowl­edg­ing In­dia’s progress. 

Al­so at­tend­ing the con­fer­ence was Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day. She pre­sent­ed at the youth fo­rum on the very first day and told Guardian Me­dia her pre­sen­ta­tion was well re­ceived. Pan­day added that it was her first time vis­it­ing In­dia.

This year’s event puts fo­cus on In­dia’s tourism, re­in­forced by the gov­ern­ment invit­ing dozens of so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers and con­tent cre­ators to at­tend the event and al­so pro­mote In­dia as a tourism des­ti­na­tion.

The PBD event, held in Bhubanesh­war, In­dia, al­so fea­tured four ex­hi­bi­tions which fea­tured arte­facts from T&T’s Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions.