Shri Oscar Fernandes, the Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs has extended an invitation to the Overseas Indian delegates to be part with India’s exciting march to progress and prosperity.   He said that if there is one virtue that defines the Overseas Indian community, it is their knowledge, expertise and skills across a wide gamut of sectors.  We would seek to build a bridge between India and the global Indian to transform ideas into individual initiatives and community action. Shri Fernandes was addressing the inaugural session of 4th Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas at Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) here today. 

Following is the text of Shri Oscar Fernandes’s address:

            “It is indeed our honour that so many of you have come from different parts of the globe to participate in this prestigious event. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (OIA), it is a young ministry and is a special initiative of the UPA government under the leadership of the Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh. The formation of this Ministry acknowledges the fact that the overseas Indian community is a significant force and need mainstream attention.  Estimated about 20 million spread across a 110 countries in eight major regions of the world, it is in the true that the sun never sets on the Indian diaspora.

            Our Ministry is a small one and we propose to remain small. The Ministry is also unique in that we are positioning ourselves as a ‘services Ministry’ to function as a friend and guide to the vast and diverse overseas Indian community.  We believe that it is important to take a medium to long-term view of India’s engagement with its diaspora.  

The Indian diaspora is not a homogenous group. In recent weeks I have had the opportunity to meet large number of you in different countries. From my interaction I have come to realize that the needs and expectations of the Indians in the Gulf region for instance are as unique and different as the overseas Indians in North America.   Equally, the overseas Indian community in the old diaspora countries such as Mauritius, Fiji, Caribbean, South Africa, etc. has vastly different concerns and interests from the diaspora in Europe or other parts of the Western world. India is a vibrant whole of many cultures, religions, languages and regions.  It is this plurality that gives us strength. The invisible threat that holds this heterogeneity together his Indian-ness. This plurality is true as much of the Indian diaspora.  The idea of Indian-ness bonding us together across the globe, as the Prime Minister reminded us last year, is an idea whose time has come. Simply put, we are truly ‘globally Indian’.

We are indeed proud all of you. Each of you has worked with distinction in your chosen fields of activity and the global Indian is today recognized all over the world for his or her knowledge, dedication and strong work ethic.  You have all successfully joined the mainstream in the countries in which you live and work, but have yet retained your cultural identity and your bond with the home country. 

India is rapidly emerging on the world firmament to take its rightful place among the comity of nations.  Besides being one of the fast growing economies, India is also a young nation.

The pre-eminence that India has gained around the world is to my mind primarily because of three visionaries who guided the destiny of the nation and one who continues to do so with sagacity and courage.

Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation was the first eminent Pravasi Bharatiya who galvanized the freedom movement and won us political freedom. In doing so, he also became an apostle of peace and gave the world the message of ‘Ahimsa’.

The architect of Modern India is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It was he who laid the institutional foundation to nurture the scientific temper. If we are today reaping the benefits of science and technology and can boast of the best institutions like the IIT’s, we owe it largely to Panditji.

We must recall with pride a young Prime Minister who had a dream.  A dream of taking India into 21^st Century.  It was he who gave us the vision of the great opportunity of the new economy.  Long before the world had seen the power IT, Shri Rajiv Gandhi had seeded the idea in India.

            Now we again have in our present Prime Minister, a visionary and a statesman. The great leap forward that we have made since 1991, is due entirely to the economic reforms that he designed and implemented.  With him at the helm of affairs, we will press forward with reforms and enlarge opportunities for all.

            Such of you who are keen observers of the demography of development would know that every nation which made a quantum leap in its economic progress did so at that time in its history when the working age population as a percentage of its total population was at its highest.  In about a decade and a half, India will be at that historic moment when its working age population will be at its highest as a share of its population.  This provides us a window of opportunity. It will be a time when we can achieve higher productivity, savings and investments.

            It is this window of global opportunity that I place before you and extend an invitation to partner with us in India’s exciting march to progress and prosperity.   If there is one virtue that defines the Overseas Indian community, it is your knowledge, expertise and skills across a wide gamut of sectors.  We will seek to build a bridge between India and the global Indian to transform ideas into individual initiatives and community action.  We wish to benefit from your knowledge  just as we will all of you to benefit from the enormous opportunities that India offers.

            The primary objective of my Ministry will be to establish an institutional framework for sustainable and mutually beneficial engagement between and its diaspora.  We will seek to build this framework through three kinds of partnerships.

• Knowledge partnerships with professional bodies of overseas Indians in diverse sectors. For instance, we are proposing a partnership with AAPI – the American Association of the Physicians of Indian origin to work together in the health care sector in India.   Back home, we would like to partner with institutions such as NASSCOM.  The idea will be to have the knowledge partner bring “domain knowledge” in a specific field of activity and partner with us to launch initiatives that would be mutually beneficial.
• Institutional partnerships with apex associations of overseas Indians  to give us the outreach capability. We believe this is the best to reach out to every Indian across the globe. Here in India we will similarly forge partnerships with apex associations such as FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM etc. 
• The third and perhaps the most important partnership that we will vigorously promote is to induct the states in India as stake holder partners.  Any initiatives by the overseas Indians  whether individually or collectively must be anchored in one of the states of India. 

It is these partnerships that can nurture and make strong the process of engagement of India with its diaspora over the medium to long-term.

It is in this context that the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas gains importance. We have defined the theme of this conference as “Coming together. Working together”.  We wish to make a paradigm shift in the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas here in Hyderabad.   We will seek to transform this from a mere event into a global forum that will target specific outcomes.  We will also seek to follow-up with a road map supported by institutions-yours and ours – working together. It is this thread that holds together the various plenary and parallel sessions that we have put together for this three day conference.

To demonstrate our commitment we have also some initiatives being launched over the course of the next three days.  One such initiative is the launch of an integrated universal electronic remittance gateway.  This facility combines the virtues of convenience, speed and economy. An important part of this Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas is day 2 of the conference when we will have as many as 12 states interacting with the delegates. Several of these state delegations are being led by the Chief Ministers themselves.  They will interact with you both in the plenary format as well as in parallel sessions.

We have received excellent support from Dr.Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and his team in organizing this event.  As a partner State, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has worked hard to make this event a success.  Equally, the FICCI as an institutional partner has been a constant support to us.  In an event of this magnitude it is natural there could be some shortcomings.  Please do bear with us.   We have made every effort to make this a meaningful and memorable conference. Thank you one and all for your enthusiasm and participation in such large numbers”.  

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AK/SK/RC/GS (at PBD-2006 Hyderabad)