Planning Secretary Shakil P Ahammed today said that the G20 summit will be an opportunity for the State to showcase its unique culture natural beauty cuisine and most-sort-after cleanliness and hospitality.
Meghalaya is all geared up to host the G20 Summit Space Economy Leaders’ Meet (SELM) precursor meeting on April 17 and 18.
Ahammed said 28 diplomats from various countries and more than 100 delegates will be participating including technocrats.
“Getting such high level delegates coming to our state is a rare occasion. We should present our best foot forward so that they can go back with fond memories which will help state in showcasing, benchmarking and positioning Meghalaya as bright destination for tourism, investment and development,” he said at a press conference.
ISRO director N Sudheer Kumar said that the event is a precursor of the main event, which be held in Bengaluru on July 6 and 7. “This event concentrates on how it is going to organise the main event and a precursor event to showcase all the capability in the space economy and space potential capabilities of ISRO,” he said.
He stated that having spent almost 50 years, ISRO has acquired self reliance and capabilities not only in the launch vehicle but satellite, satellite application and navigation.
Kumar said the message India wants to send to the world is that collaborations are not possible for future science mission where space is going to be expensive industry or proposition.
“Northeast states play a very important role for us. Because of the hilly areas, the potential is more. In harsh conditions, the space application is the best,” he said, adding, “The Northeast Space Application Centre is doing great. We want to showcase that these areas have huge potential for the space industries to come and invest.”
Furthermore, he said that space technology cannot change the nature and it can only predict the behaviour of the nature and to take action to mitigate the risk.
According to Kumar, having technology is not enough since someone needs to rise to the occasion and utilized the technology and put into applications.
He also stressed on the need of capacity building for the country to train, educate and develop people and come up with technologies to address problems of the common man.
The inaugural function on April 17 will be attended by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, Union Minister of State (Finance) Pankaj Chaudhury, Union Minister of State (Ind. Charge) Science &Tech Dr Jitendra Singh, Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa, Secretary, Department of Space (DOS) Somanath S, Chairman IN-SPACe Dr Pawan Kumar Goenka.
