The Kalinga International Foundation (KIF) would organise its second major international conference in Bhubaneswar from March 16 to 18, announced its chairman lalit Mansingh here on Tuesday.
The theme of the conference is Purbasa: East meets East: Synergising the North-East and Eastern India with the Indo-Pacific. It brings together, for the first time, the eastern and northeastern region of India with their proximate neighbours- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri lanka and beyond, with the ASEAN nations and the wider Indo-Pacific region.
Sailors, merchants, scholars and artisans from this region travelled overseas and established linkages with the people of South East Asia dating back to the 4th Century BCE. The pioneers were the Sadhavas, the sailor-merchants of Kalinga, a powerful empire straddling the eastern sea coast of India. It would be worthwhile to study the role played by economic ties in the development of cultural relations. The Sadhavas acted as messengers of peace and couriers of culture between eastern India and the Indo-Pacific region. Kalinga has, therefore, been used as a metaphor for the historic ties that bind this wider region together.
Union Ministers and Chief Ministers of the North-East and Eastern region will join the event. The Kalinga Saraswati Samman will be conferred on noted scholars on Prof V Suryanarayan for his book on
Indonesia and to Sudip Sen for his book on Bali. Foreign dignitaries like Hon Gamini Jayawicrama Perera,
Minister of Buddha Sasana, Sri lanka; and Shahjahan Kamal, Minister of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Bangladesh will speak. In addition, Prof Ajarn Sulak Sivarakasha, Thailand will give a special address.
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; the Deputy High Commissioner of Australia and Minister Economic of the Embassy of Japan. On the Indian side, Pinak Chakravarty Prof V Suryanarayan and Deepa G Wadhwa would respond to their remarks.