By Paras Ramoutar, IANS,
Port-of-Spain : Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Nov 27 at the Cultural Centre here. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be among 52 leaders attending the summit.
Though the centre is yet to be completed, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning on a visit to the facility last week confirmed that it will be ready for the three-day summit.
The queen will be accompanied by her husband Prince Phillip.In her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, the queen will deliver the keynote address at the summit. US President Barack Obama was invited as a special guest but will not be able to attend.
Chutney music, an indigenous form of music laced with Bhojpuri words, will form part of the opening ceremony, according to Brian Mac Farlane, coordinator of the cultural extravaganza at the opening ceremony.
Mac Farlane had coordinated the music for the Fifth Summit of the Americas here last April and faced criticism from the Indo-Trinidadian population for not including any East Indian element. People of Indian origin constitute about 40 percent of Trinidad’s 1.3 million people.