Jointly celebrate Guru Nanak Dev’s 550th parkash purab in league with SGPC: Harsimrat to Trudeau

Union Food Processing Minister and SAD MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday suggested the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that his Government should jointly celebrate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in league with the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).

Harsimrat’s suggestion came at the time when the Congress-led Punjab Government is already making all out preparations to make the celebrations a grand event, while claiming to take along all political and religious parties and institutions, irrespective of their affiliations.

Notably, SAD and the main opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders had stayed away from a meeting called by the Punjab Government to prepare for the event.

Similar suggestion was out forth by SAD president and Harsimrat’s husband Sukhbir Badal during his brief meeting with Canadian Prime Minister at the Golden Temple, a day before.

Already, the SAD had announced that the party, along with the SGPC, would commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev as a global event “in full Khalsa splendour”.

Other than that, Harsimrat, on the sidelines of a Indian-Canada business session, also urged Trudeau to facilitate start of Toronto-Amritsar Air Canada flights.

The Canadian premier assured to look into both the suggestions.

Earlier, the Union Food Processing Minister invited Canadian companies to invest in the food processing sector in India, saying that foreign direct investment (FDI) in this sector was on the rise and had unparalleled growth potential.

Harsimrat, addressing the India-Canada business session which was attended by visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as Canadian ministers and representatives of CII and FICCI, said that India-Canada had registered a trade of eight billion dollars in 2016.

She said that this could rise exponentially due to increased FDI investment in the food sector in India. “The country received FDI worth 60 billion dollars in 2016-17 and even this is on the rise because of the vast uncapped potential of the food sector. India has a retail potential of 60 billion dollars out of which 70 percent is in the food sector alone,” she added.

Inviting Canadian companies to invest in the food sector, Harsimrat said that a number of steps had been taken to facilitate investors including start of a Food Regulatory Portal which was a single interface for food businesses to cater to both domestic operations and food imports. She said that another portal — Nivesh Bandhu — has facilitated investors to make informed investment decisions.