Ontario: Vedanta Resources Chairman Anil Agarwal was honoured with the Global Indian Award by the Canada-India Foundation at its 15th annual gala over the weekend.
“I have gone all over the world, but I have not seen the kind of bonding in the Indian diaspora anywhere that I see in Canada. Take your businesses to the skies and make Canada proud. You live in the best country in the world,” Agarwal was quoted as saying in an IANS report.
He donated the $50,000 award money to a Canadian health charity working for the welfare of native Indians.
The gala event was attended by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, ministers and Indian consul general Apoorva Srivastava among others.
The Vedanta founder said that India has been a poor country. “But the time has reversed. The $3-trillion economy is going to be a $30 trillion economy in the coming years. The middle class that is 20 per cent today is going to be 80 per cent in the next six-seven years. We are going to build 150 big cities in India. Indians may be 20 years behind Canada in terms of lifestyle, but their aspirations are so high that with a population of 1.4 billion you can just imagine the (sheer amount of) demand,” he was quoted in the IANS report as saying.
