By IANS
New Delhi : Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi leaves Tuesday on a five-nation tour of the Caribbean, home to a large number of persons of Indian origin (PIOs).
During the course of his visit, the minister will participate in the Indian Arrival Day celebrations in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T), St Vincent & the Grenadines and Suriname May 30, June 1 and June 4 respectively.
He will also visit the island of Curacao, a part of the Netherlands Antilles, and Jamaica, where he will meet representatives of the Indian diaspora.
"We have the largest population of PIO population in those countries," Ravi told IANS on the eve of his visit.
"This is the first time I am going there and I am looking forward to interacting with the Indian community there," he said.
At 520,000, PIOs comprise over 40 percent of T&T's total population. In Suriname, they are 35 percent of the population of around 470,000 while in Jamaica the Indian community is 50,000-strong. In Curacao, there are around 500 Indians, most of them PIOs, and in St Vincent the number is around 5,000.
Indian Arrival Day, a national holiday in T&T, is celebrated in several countries of the Caribbean to mark the arrival of the first batches of Indian indentured labour in those countries in the 19th century to work in the sugarcane plantations there.
While in T&T, the minister will participate in the celebrations organized by the National Council of Indian Culture at Diwalinagar, Chaguanas, near the capital Port of Spain. He will also meet top dignitaries like Minister for Trade and Industry Kanneth Valley, Minister for Community Development & Culture Lenny Saith, Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissesar, President of the Senate Linda Baboolal and Speaker of the House of Representatives Barendra Sinanan.
From T&T, Ravi will be on a daylong visit to St. Vincent where he will take part in the Indian Arrival day celebrations. This is the first time that the Indian Arrival Day is being celebrated in that country.
In Suriname the minister will address the Indian Arrival Day celebrations at the Mai & Baap memorial in the capital Paramaribo, besides attending a seminar on Indian immigration to Suriname.
While on his way to Jamaica June 5, he will drop by in the island of Curacao, where he will meet Governor-General of the Netherlands Antilles Frits Goedgedrag and Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage, apart from representatives of the Indian origin community.
In Jamaica, the minister will meet that country's Minister for Foreign Affairs Anthony Hylton.
From the Caribbean, the minister goes to New York and then Liverpool in Britain where he will interact with members of the Indian community. He returns to India June 11.