Jakarta Globe, Carla Isati Octama, Jan 14, 2015
Jakarta.
The Indian Embassy in Jakarta plans to serve up a four-month-long bonanza of
festivities to celebrate bilateral relations with Indonesia, kicking off on
Jan. 26, the 65th anniversary of India’s Republic Day.
The
“Festival of India in Indonesia,” which will run through May, will include 33
programs to be held in 15 cities across Indonesia, including Jakarta,
Yogyakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Denpasar, Makassar, Medan, Balikpapan and Banda
Aceh.
“This is a
small tribute by India to Indonesia — a long-standing friend, close partner and
neighbor,” said Gurjit Singh, the Indian ambassador to Indonesia and Timor
Leste, said on Wednesday. “Our links have been geographical, civilizational and
cultural for centuries.”
Events on
offer will include various cultural and traditional performances, including
folk dances, puppetry, concerts, exhibitions, seminars, and screening of
Bollywood movies and documentaries from India.
“We are
trying to work with all of these programs that bring them in a way that we can
share our experience and bring them to Indonesia,” the ambassador said. “So in
fact there will be one big exhibition called Digital India. Similarly we are
trying to create a message of a clean India.
“And we are
going to bring ‘Make in India’ by getting Indian investors to come to Indonesia
to also to manufacture here and to contribute to a ‘Make in Indonesia’,” he
said, referring to a program by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make
India a global manufacturing hub.
Esti
Andayani, the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s director general for
information and public diplomacy, said: “India and Indonesia have enjoyed
strong bonds of friendship, and cooperation not only based on shared history
and common cultures, heritage, but also our common ideals of peace, stability
and progress for all.
She added
she was hopeful that the “Festival of India” would serve to strengthen those
ties even further and lead to deeper exchanges.
The start
date of the festival is significant as the anniversary of the day in 1950 when
India’s constitution came into force.
BeritaSatu
Media Holdings, which is affiliated with the Jakarta Globe, is a media partner
of the “Festival of India.”
For more
information on the events, go to www.indianembassyjakarta.com.
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