The 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention commenced on 9th January 2025 with an inaugural session with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the convention. Organized to pay respect to the Achhiuns of the global Indian population, the event has, over the years, emerged as a crucial focusing point of India-Diaspora relations.
The convention theme of this year Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is “Diaspora’s Contribution to a Viksit Bharat”, which is a pointer towards the desire of the country to have inclusive growth. Organized by the Ministry of External Affairs and State Government of Odisha, it will be conducted in Odisha from the 8th to the 10th of January.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, while addressing the gathering on the first day of the event, urged the NRIs and PIOs to contribute to the country’s development agenda. He underlined the need for the young generation of Indian expatriates to change their conventional impressions about India in the global community and further echoed India’s progress towards the formation of a ‘developed India’.
Meanwhile, at the convention, PM Modi also launched four exhibitions that explored India’s culture, customs, and people of Indian origin and their achievements.
The first exhibition, which was called ‘Vishwaroop Ram,’ was a contemplation about the legacy of Ramayan, and the epic was viewed through both classical and contemporary art. This basically brought out the aspect of the universal nature of the Ramayana in so many societies all over the world.
The second exhibition aimed to tell the story of how the Indian communities have been active in contributing to technological enhancements in the world and were contributing to the Indian vision of the developed nation.
The third exhibition recreates the journey of the Indian people, beginning with their flowing out from India and the prominence given to the emigration scheme of moving from Mandvi, Gujarat, to Muscat, Oman. In the few available and rare historical documents, the journey and its effects on these migrants were depicted.
The fourth exhibition has been organized to promote the culture and architecture of Odisha and its related arts and crafts. Altogether in the context of the two presented exhibits, it is possible to emphasize that India is a country of an active modernization process, capable of combining economic and technological progress with spirituality.
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