The stalls screamed aloud India’s rich cultural and geographical wealth and its ever-growing technological revolutions at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Exhibition being held at the Le Meridien Hotel in Kochi.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Union Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi and Minister for Cultural Affairs and Norka K C Joseph jointly inaugurated the exhibition. The Kerala pavilion was opened by Vayalar Ravi.
Hundreds of delegates from different parts of India and foreign countries lined up to witness the exhibition which is a pool of information on developmental wealth.
Over 50 stalls from different states including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha and Haryana give special focus to IT, energy conservation, agriculture and tourism.
Standing tall are the developmental achievements of Gujarat with a host of technological revolutions such as the Canal Top Power project and solar power park masterminded by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Wildlife and eco-tourism of Madhya Pradesh are equally crowd-pullers. Similar are the stalls of Rajasthan, Odisha, Maharashtra, Punjab and Bihar which have a powerful display of peculiar wealth in both cultural and traditional aspects.
A stall of the National Commission for Women highlights the needs and issues of Indian women in foreign countries. It is aimed to provide more awareness to the NRI visitors.
Tribes India, a Government of India undertaking, focuses on the display and sale of the traditional artifacts and handicrafts of the tribal people of India.
There are also stalls by various state government departments to cater to the needs of overseas Indians such as the Kerala-based NORKA.
Excise Minister K Babu, MPs K P Dhanapalan, M K Raghavan, NORKA vice-chairman M A Yousuf Ali also visited the pavilions.