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Chennai will witness 10 days of Sweden-related events as the world's largest replica of a sailing tall ship comes into Chennai Port.
Ambassador Harald Faith of the Embassy of Sweden, outlining the activities scheduled to take place in the city during the 10-day 'Sweden Comes to Chennai' programme, said bringing different aspects of Swedish life could be witnessed in Chennai, the highpoint being the arrival of the Swedish ship,
Gotheborg.
'Sweden Comes to Chennai' will begin with a seminar on Sustainable City Planning, jointly organised by IIT-Madras and the City of Goteborg. This will be followed by festivities at the Chennai Port on Janaury 31 where the ship will be welcomed by Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Maud Olofsson, and Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, T R Baalu, among others.
On February 1, Maud Olofsson and Union minister for Communications and IT, Dayandhi Maran, will inaugurate the Sweden-India Business Day, providing a unique opportunity for interaction between Swedish and Indian companies in the fields of ICT, automotive and biomedicine.
On the culture front, activities lined up are performances by Swedish jazz fusion group Mynta, a Swedish food festival at the Taj Coromandel, a Swedish Film Festival and a regatta among various other activities surrounding the ship.
"I do hope that Chennai and its people are as excited as we are with the events planned," Ambassador Faith said. "Chennai is an emerging market attracting various global businesses in fields such as automotive, IT and telecommunications making it an obvious alternative for anybody looking at India."
Interestingly, Chennai's increasing importance as a commercial hub is one of the primary reasons why the chief sponsors of the ship were also in favour of the city as the only official port of call in India.
The Swedish Ship Gotheborg which has sailed across five continents, including Cadiz (Spain) Recife (Brazil), Port Elizabeth (South Africa), Fremantle (Australia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong (China) left Singapore on January 14. She will sail for 15 days before reaching Chennai where the ship will berth for 11 days.
In keeping with the tradition, a group of people from the next port of call joins in as volunteer crew or sailors as the ship leaves a country. The Indian contingent which sails back with the ship from Singapore comprises film maker-actor Revathy, who is a keen sailor, Lt Cdr Amit Arvind (ranked No. 1 in India, No. 5 in Asia and training for the Olympics in the laser class), a tsunami-affected fisherman's son and a Chennai businessman.
The volunteer crew will help out on the ship - wearing overalls, cleaning the deck, peeling potatoes while roughing the choppy seas and the stark weather conditions - all this while getting a first-hand sailing experience they would never have got otherwise. "I am sure they will all come back with some very interesting stories," the Ambassador added.
The Swedish ship Gotheborg will be open to the public on select days. Visitors will be required to assemble at the parking lots opposite to the Secretariat at Fort St George and will be ferried to the ship in buses earmarked to transport them to the docks and onwards to the ship.
Contact details for viewing by school children will be available on phone No. 0442811 2232 and for public on phone No. 044-2811 0669.
R Rangaraj
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