FICCI helped the Government of India organize the first two Pravasi events in 2003 and 2004. It is now hosting the PBD for the third straight year. What is the expertise that FICCI is bringing into the event?

FICCI is the one that first worked with Government to set up the two first Pravasi Bharatiya events in 2003 and 2004, and, of course, there were other organizations including CII that did them. And then the last three years—the last two years, and this coming year—FICCI is again the Partner with Government of India, the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs to do this event. What is our expertise, our expertise is basically that we are very good at organizing large events, especially national events, we do them in a large number of sectors, and we have a specialization in Pravasi Bharatiya because we have strong international connects, and expertise with being able to work with state Governments to do it.

Will this be the largest PBD one has seen in recent times?

Yes. Most definitely it will be the largest PBD because I think the whole tremendous hype that has been created by Prime Minister Modi on not just himself, but more India. India is suddenly the flavor of the day all across the world. We know that there are strong Pravasi populations in some of the places that Hon’ble PM has been like New York or Australia or even with neighbouring countries. There is a tremendous desire to connect back with India, to see if one can connect with the Indian economy, so there will be much more representation. I would say it would probably be two or three times the usual representation.