Kashmiri Pandit group to organise business meet in Pune

A group of Kashmiri Pandit youth is organising a business conference in Pune tomorrow to create an ecosystem for members of the community who are setting up startups or small medium enterprises.

The conference is expected to have approximately 70 to 80 SMEs and startups from major cities in the country, organisers said.

"It aims to nurture entrepreneurship and facilitate success stories of Kashmiri Pandits and reach out to SMEs, potential customers and venture capitalists (VCs)," said Rohit Kachroo, co-convenor and spokesperson of KP Startups which is organising the conference.

"It is to ensure his startup gets guidance so that it earns profits," he said.

"Kashmiri Hindu Pandits have been subjected to brutal atrocities and we have been isolated politically as well as economically. KP Startups is a platform for our community to sustain itself economically in these turbulent times," he said.

He said that one of the core priorities of KP Startups was the economic improvement of the exiled Hindu community by being a force multiplier in the inter-community trade.

"The government asks our youth to go back to the Kashmir Valley to avail jobs. At one point, our youth even accepted that but when they actually went, they were subjected to harassment and that prompted them to return," he claimed.

He added that instead of begging the government for jobs, they thought of creating an economic forum to facilitate the shift from a job-seeking mindset to a job-creating one.

He said that Pune was chosen as the city had a thriving ecosystem for startups and SMEs.

He said that next conference would be held in Jammu.

AbbinowTalashi,co-convener of KP Startups informed that the first conference was held in Delhi in April this year.