CHICAGO: A singular achievement that Indian Consul General Dr Ausaf Sayeed can legitimately claim to be an outcome of his initiatives relates to having a unified India Day flag hoisting ceremony with the support of the Indian community at large at the City Daley Plaza in Downtown Chicago.
The flag hoisting ceremony so far by the CG office was confined within four corners of the office wall while groups within the Indian community professing allegiance to different organizations were holding their own ceremonies separately at Daly Plaza.
For a change, the CG will host flag hoisting outside the Consulate premise in the open at Daley Plaza and all groups of Indian Americans have decided to support it. The CG office will also have all around support for its annual India Day banquet and hopes are exuded that group rivalries within the community triggered by personal differences and ego would come to an end.
Disclosing this at a Media meet held on March 11at his office in Chicago, CG Dr Ausaf Sayeed also briefed the Media on various activities proposed to be held by the Consulate office during the current year. The meet was well attended by a cross-section of print and audio-visual media organizations along with freelance journalists.
Welcoming the Media, CG Dr Sayeed also took the opportunity to introduce his new Information officer, O.P.Meena, who recently joined the Consulate. He then informed the press that his office has chalked out a crowded program for the current year covering practically most areas that affect India and members of Indian community here. It ranged from official events to economic, cultural and educational agendas besides intense efforts to address the concerns of the community with regard to Passport, Visa, OCI and other related matters.
The meeting was invigorating for all and it reflected genuine efforts made by the Consulate office under the stewardship of Dr Ausaf Sayeed to chart a more meaningful course for a better India, better image of the Consulate and better rapport with the community.
The Official Events planned for the current year are:
1) The International Yoga Day (IYD) on June 21 at the Consulate and other venues in collaboration with established Yoga Institutes and other organizations in Chicago;
2).The Independence Day Flag Hoisting on August 15 at 10 am at the Daley Plaza Center;
3) the National day reception on the same evening of August 15 at the Union League Club of Chicago, where diplomats, local dignitaries, government officials, leading business persons and entrepreneurs, people from different walks of life, are expected at this event which is strictly by invitation;
4) The Second Kala-Utsav or India Independence Day Night 2015 to be held on September 6 to showcase local talent. In the first Kala-Utsav held last year nearly 25 different professional cultural groups participated, with groups coming from even Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Bolingbrook, etc.
5) The Consulate proposes to celebrate Gandhi Jayanti on October 2 on a larger scale in collaboration with the Gandhi Foundation at Niles as well as the Milwaukee group. Last year the CG participated in the Gandhi Jayanti celebrations organized by the Chicago Sister City Committee in which Mayor Rahm Emmanuel had also joined.
To streamline the Consular Services and improve rapport with the community, the Consul General said that all consular officers will be available for meeting the public without appointment every day between 10am and 11am.
He also announced holding Consulate Camps for helping the community on various matters like Passport, Visa OCI etc. Two Consular Camps are being organized in March itself. The first one on March 22 was held at the Bhartiya Temple of Troy in Troy, MI from 9 am to 1 pm and the second will be held on March 29 at Oak Creek Gurudwara, in Milwaukee from 1 pm to 3 pm.
For the Indian community in Chicago land, the Camps are being planned at BAPS Shri Swami Narayan Temple, Bartlett, the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago at Lemont, the Jain Temple, Barrlett and the Gurudwara at Palantine in the quarter April to June. The Cox & Kings Global Services (CKGS) will also be part of these Consular camps.
The Consul General also touched upon the new guidelines on OCI after withdrawal of PIO Scheme. Stamping of permanent visa on PIO cards is being rendered as a gratis service and the procedure for extension of passport facilities for those who had not renewed their passports for more than three years.
The Tourist Visa on Arrival (TVoA) is proposed to be extended to 150 countries in a phased manner. He also pointed out that the timelines for various services has been considerably reduced: Visas 1-2 days, new passports: 1 week in most cases.
The commercial initiatives by the CG will cover a gamut of area starting with enlightening the industry interests in Midwest about the investment opportunities in various sectors in India.
With a projected growth rate of 7.4 per cent, the investment scenario has turned hugely positive and the Consulate has been maintaining close contacts with different Chambers and Economic groupings in the US Midwest. The Consulate had recently organized a seminar on “India & the Midwest – An Economic Partnership”. The Consulate proposes to organize a Life Sciences summit on May 21.
The Consulate is in touch with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to co-host an event related to automotive industry, manufacturing and IT services firms in May/June in Detroit.
A US-India Healthcare Summit from August 3 to 5 is planned at Radisson Blu in downtown Minneapolis. The Consulate is the co-organizer for this key event which is imbibed as an extension program under the ‘Make in India” campaign as announced by PM Narendra Modi.
An Investment Mission from Michigan led by Kevin T. Kerrigan, Senior Vice-President, Michigan Automotive Office and Senior Adviser to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has come back from India.
An investment delegation headed by Chairman of India Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Sean Nelipinath, is scheduled to visit India in end March/ beginning April with the intention of exploring the possibility of making substantive investments in India over the next five years in sectors such as oil & gas fields/refineries/power and manufacturing projects and also through infrastructure projects such as airports, dams, shipping docks, bridges etc.
Dr Ausaf Sayeed had a meeting with the Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in February during which he briefed him about the recent initiatives taken by the new Government to make India a favored destination for foreign investment and businesses and huge potential that India could offer to companies in the US Midwest.
The CG pitched for the Governor leading a high-level trade mission to India. Governor Rauner, who has not visited India so far, agreed in principle to come to India in the near future. India has a trade of US$ 1.9 billion with Illinois, which includes India’s exports of US$ 1.36 billion to Illinois and India’s imports of US$ 648 million from Illinois.
The Consulate collaborates with different organizations in the Chicagoland in organizing various regular cultural events such ‘Eye on India’, ‘South Asian Film’ and ‘Ragamala’, which is a part of the Chicago Music Festival. Last year it collaborated with the Anila Sinha Foundation to organize the 3rd International Kathak.
This year efforts will be made to collaborate with other organizations and take important Indian cultural events to other cities in the US Midwest.
One such collaboration that is being discussed in the field of Theatre is with the Indo-American Heritage Museum and leading community leaders to host the English and Urdu performances of two plays ‘Quli: Dilon ka Shahzada’ and ‘Savaan-e-Hayat’ by Padma Shri awardee and internationally acclaimed director Mohammad Ali Baig from the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation, tentatively on May 17. In the coming months the Consulate would be exploring the possibility of staging Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati plays in Chicagoland.
The CG office has also been taking number of initiatives in academic and educational fields. Mitch Daniels, Purdue University President visited India during November last to enhance and solidify the University’s engagement with alumni and partners. Purdue has a long history of educating Indian students, with nearly 1400 currently enrolled. Also, nearly a 100 of its faculty are of Indian origin.
Many of its alumni are in key positions in Indian government, business, industry and academic settings. The University has partnerships with the IITs in Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad, IIMs including the one in Ranchi, IISc, the Cummins College of Engineering for Women in Pune etc.
Prof. Alok Chaturvedi of School of Management West Lafayette, was in India from March 13-28 where he discussed with minister Smriti Irani how the world renowned faculty from Purdue University, especially those of Indian origin, can help support PM Modi’s “Make in India” initiative and the “Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan.”
The University of Urbana Champaign is in the advanced stage of opening a center in India. The University of Chicago has been operating a center in New Delhi since last year. The St Louis based Washington University has 150 faculty connected to India or have projects underway.
The Consul General has time and again addressed students from different universities here. The Kellogg School of Management students who are undertaking the academic Program “Global Initiative in management (GIM) would be visiting India later this month.
The Consul General mooted the idea of making a directory of resource persons among Indian-Americans in the US Midwest. The CG’s address was followed by a question answer session.
Ramesh Soparawala & Jayanti Oza
India Post News Service
