| A delegation of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs of the Government of India was hosted by Kaizen Technologies at the Holiday Inn in Edison, New Jersey on March 5, for a face-to-face with the community with regard to the Indian government’s two new initiatives – the India Development Fund (IDF) and Global Indian Knowledge Network (G-INK). The delegation led by Secretary to the MOIA K. Mohandas comprised Col. H.S. Sethi, CEO, Overseas Indian Facilitation Center; P. Kishore, Managing Director, Everonn Systems India Ltd.; Preeti Basil, Project Head, Tata Consultancy Services; and Shiv Ranjan, Counsellor, Embassy of India.
In a largely interactive event, Mohandas who gave a brief outlay of the two initiatives, answered many questions from the audience and clarified doubts. The IDF and G-INK were announced by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations in January this year.
The IDF is a new Trust set up by the Government of India for facilitating philanthropic investments into India through credible non-governmental organizations. The idea is to help those overseas Indians who may wish to donate towards developmental causes in India but do not know how to go about it.
G-INK is designed as an electronic platform through which overseas Indians can voluntarily offer their skills to the government of India without having to relocate to India. G-INK will harness these skills towards developmental projects where the knowledge and overseas experience can be put to use. The G-INK website, which will be fully
functional by June, is being developed by the Tata Consultancy Services and is already open for registration. Mohandas appealed to the Indian American community to participate in this process and help shape the initiatives further.
New Jersey Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula and P.S. Sasi Kumar, Consul at the Indian Consulate were present on the occasion. Among the community leaders present was Dr. Sudhir Parikh, who vouched for the MOIA’s efforts at engaging the Diaspora constructively for the development of India. Mohandas later answered a number of queries from the audience on how the two initiatives would actually work. With general elections in India around the corner, Mohandas said the IDF and G-INK would continue their work irrespective of who forms the government following the election.
He assured the members that there was no chance of any leakages of charitable funds contributed by the diaspora as there would be a process of checks and balances in place. The government would put out a list of credible NGOs through which the funds would be utilized, he said. Col Sethi explained how the G-INK will work through the Overseas IndianFacilitationCenter, while Basil explained how the G-INK website will work to link overseas Indian across the globe with the government of India. Ashok Krish, President of Kaizen Technologies gave the opening remarks, the event was conducted by Sunil Robert and Kailas Simha gave the vote of thanks |
