India Refused Itu Offer To Host Conference

India was offered the chance to host Asia Telecom 97 in 1995, but refused. This revelation was made by Fernando Lagrana, vice-president (telecom events) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) here. The reasons for Indias refusal to play host to the event are unknown.

We were keen that India host the event because we wanted a place different from Singapore, Lagrana said. But, they (department of telecommunications officials) were not interested. Singapore has hosted the quadrennial event all four times in the last 16 years.

We sent out letters to a number of countries in the region; India was one of them. Even our president (of the ITU secretariat) Jean Jipguep spoke to them (Indian officials), but..., Lagrana shrugged.

 

The ITU has been looking for cities other than Singapore which are willing and have facilities to host a conference-cum-exhibition of this magnitude. However an Indian official predicted that the next time around in 2001, that is India would find it very difficult to bid for the event as others have reealised the importance of the event.

But, is India in the race at all and will it take on the event if asked to? According to communications minister Beni Prasad Verma, India is certainly in the race and willing to organise the event. There is no question of refusing; we will readily accept it if we got another chance, he said. Verma has been very impressed with the Singapore governments efforts to make the city-nation an intelligent island, fully wired into a network capable of multimedia applications.

However, an India-based senior executive with one of the US telecom vendors had a fresh and sobering view on Indias refusal to host the event. Just as well, he said. We dont have the infrastructure to host this kind of an event. Vigyan Bhavan (in Delhi) may be a great conference centre, but can Pragati Maidan be used as an exhibition venue? Can MTNL deploy 1,000 temporary lines for an event like this? Can VSNL give us a couple of hundred high speed Internet access accounts? he said, perhaps unwittingly answering the countrys reticence to host the event.