International Conference Purbasa: East Meets East Kicks Off In Odisha Capital

Bhubaneswar: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday inaugurated ‘Purbasa: East meets East: Synergising the North-East and Eastern India with the Indo-Pacific’ the second major international conference of the Kalinga International Foundation (KIF) at Hotel Mayfair in the Odisha capital here.

Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said the conference will lead to an enhanced dialogue between the peoples and their culture.

“This three-day conference is the first of its kind in Odisha where top dignitaries and experts from our neighbouring countries and the wider Indo-Pacific region have gathered to deliberate on issues of mutual interest to us,” he added.

Chairman, Kalinga International Foundation and former Indian ambassador Lalit Mansingh said the Kalinga International Foundation believes that the East and the North East should be seen as a homogeneous cultural and economic region of India, which is playing a crucial role in the India’s Act East Policy.

“KIF is pleased that now, the North East and Eastern region of India will be in dialogue with the friendly neighbours on India’s east – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with ASEAN partners and beyond with Australia and Japan,” he pointed out.

He further said the title of the dialogue is aptly named PURBASA, meaning the rise of the East, the hopes from the East, and, the message from the East. The sixteen countries represented at the PURBASA Conference are indeed the sunrise states of the Indo-Pacific, which come to life when the rest of the world is still asleep.

On the occasion, the Kalinga Saraswati Samman was conferred to noted scholars Prof V Suryanarayan for his book “Together in struggle: India and Indonesia, 1945-1949” and Sudip Sen for his book ‘The pride and glory of Bali Yatra’.

For the first time, the conference brings together the eastern and northeastern region of India with their neighbours Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and beyond, with the ASEAN nations and the wider Indo-Pacific region. The states located in India’s north-east – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura and in the east- Bihar, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura and in the east- Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar in the south-east, have strong common ties of history, culture, language and customs and traditions from early times. Both have a rich heritage of links with Southeast Asia and East Asia — one via the land route and the other through the maritime link.

 The Inauguration was concluded with Purbasa Cultural Programme presented by Padma Shri (Ms) Aruna Mohanty, Director, Odisha Dance Academy.

The conference is organised around eight sessions on the following themes: Economic Co-operation, Maritime Connectivity and  Security in the Indo-Pacific, Connecting Women, Youth and Civil Society, Energy Co-operation, Regional Connectivity, Bilaterals: India’s Most Favoured Nations, Tourism, Culture; Buddhism, Summation and Looking Ahead.

These themes have their origin in the new charter of East-East cooperation mandated by the Indo-ASEAN Commemorative Summit held in New Delhi on January 25 this year.

A major highlight of the conference would be the Session on Bilaterals with speeches by Ambassadors respectively of Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines and Myanmar; Minister Economic of the Embassy of Japan.

KIF is an independent, non-partisan think tank that seeks to develop new and robust partnerships between India and the countries of the region.