Gujarat CM Narendra Modi
addressed NRIs in Toronto via a satellite
Welcomes investors
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi addressed the NRI community
in Toronto via a satellite video-conferencing link over the weekend,
on Sep. 19 at a gala organized the Canada India Foundation. He
said:
- Gujarat welcomes all investors with open arms,
and its can-do attitude of recent years will prove a win-win
for all stakeholders.
- He identified the "twin threats of global
terrorism and global warming" as the biggest challenges
the world faces today.
- There is 11 per cent annual growth and urged
the Gujarati community to benefit from development in the state.
- He urged Gujaratis and other South Asians in
Canada to attend the state-sponsored Global Investment Conference
being organized January 12-13, to discuss business proposals.
This is when we hold the kite festival. Let your business dreams
too soar high, as your kite rides ever upwards
- While other states in India are setting up
Special Economic Zones (SEZs), we're going a step further with
a Special Investment Region, or SIR, which will be like a Gujarat-in-Gujarat,
or faster growth region within a state that's already charting
fast economic growth.
Criticising to the congress Govenment,
he said:
Taking a swipe at the government of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh at the Centre, he said post-9/11, when other countries
were busy instituting anti-terror laws, "India has been the
only country to dismantle its anti-terror laws".
New Delhi has done away with the Prevention of
Terrorism Act (Pota), which has in some quarters been viewed as
draconian after alleged instances of misuse under its broad umbrella
surfaces.
Modi urged Gujaratis settled abroad to exert pressure
on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to tighten
India's anti-terror laws in the wake of the recent serial blasts
in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and New Delhi.
I have appealed to New Delhi for a tougher law
for four years, and you have seen what terrorists are doing everyday.
Please all of you write, e-mail to the prime minister on this
issue.
Narendra Modi had been denied a U.S. visa owing
to his alleged mishandling of the Hindu-Muslim riots
