Paras Ra­moutar

Trinidad and To­ba­go is among 110 coun­tries in­vit­ed to at­tend the ninth In­di­an Di­as­po­ra Con­fer­ence (Par­vasi Bharatiya Di­vas – PBD) set for Jan­u­ary 7 to 9 at Vi­gyan Bhawan, New Del­hi, In­dia. In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Shri Malay Mishra said dur­ing news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day more than 1,500 par­tic­i­pants would be able to net­work on a se­ries on ed­u­ca­tion, health, trade, econ­o­my, busi­ness, in­vest­ment and cul­ture. Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh would de­liv­er the open­ing ad­dress while In­di­an Pres­i­dent Shir­mati?Prat­i­b­ha De­vis­ingh Patil would con­fer the Sam­man awards and de­liv­er the clos­ing re­marks. T&T has been the recipeint of three of the awards over the years.

Awardees were:

�2 For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day;

�2 the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC); and,

�2 Dr Lenny Saith.

Theme of the con­fer­ence is "En­gag­ing the Glob­al In­di­an."

Mishra urged the peo­ple of T&T, "to con­sid­er it a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend and par­tic­i­pate in this all-im­por­tant con­fer­ence as par­tic­i­pants will re­flect the mood of the more than 25 mil­lion peo­ple of East In­di­an stock who live and work in 110 coun­tries across the globe." He said T&T should have a heavy con­tin­gent at the con­fer­ence and ex­pect­ed "sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to at­tend."