Travel News, March, 2007

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SAARC car rally re-enters India from Bhutan

          Guwahati: The SAARC car rally, after re-entering India from Bhutan on Wednesday is coming to Guwahati for night halt on day seven. The rally is headed for Nepal via Siliguri. The convoy was flagged from Gelephu , Bhutan , this morning by the Governor of Sarpang District, and entered India at Hathisar, a border check-post in Chirang District of Assam. At Hathisar, the convoy was received by a big gathering headed by Kampa Aorgoyari, Deputy Chief of the Bodoland Territorial Council, amid a captivating Bodo dance performance. From here, the convoy was taken to the campus of Bongaigaon Refinery Pvt. Ltd., where Minister of Transport, Panchayats and Rural Development of Assam Chandan Brahma welcomed them. All along the road to Guwahati, there was a large gathering of people at every village and town, cheering the caravan. School children formed a human chain at many places, waving the national flag. Welcome arches were erected at many places welcoming the rally. At Guwahati, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will host a dinner for the rally participants tonight before flagging it off tomorrow morning for onward journey to Siliguri.

          The month-long car rally was flagged off from Bangladesh 's south- eastern tourism city of Cox 's Bazar on March 15. It is travelling through 8000 kilometres of different terrains in India , Bhutan , Nepal , Pakistan , Sri Lanka and the Maldives . A total of 120 people, representing seven South Asian countries are participating in the rally. Business events have been planned on sector-specific subjects, including trade and economic cooperation, information technology, energy, small and medium enterprise cooperation, executive roundtable, tourism and fish processing, in each of the member states through which the rally will travel. The initiative for arranging the car rally was first floated in the 13th SAARC summit in November 2006, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested this in line with his proposal for better connectivity among the South Asian nations.
-March 21,  2007