ASIA SOCIETY OPENS NEW INDIA CENTRE IN MUMBAI

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Inaugurate Centre at the Society’s
16th Asian Corporate Conference Opening Dinner, March 18, 2006

Mumbai, India; March 17, 2006 - Asia Society today unfurled plans for its new India Centre in Mumbai, which will be officially launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a dinner which opens the Society’s 16th Asian Corporate Conference on Saturday, March 18. The two and a half day conference, “Driving Global Business: India’s New Priorities, Asia’s New Realities,” will examine India’s potential to take off as a mature business market and how India’s growth will help determine Asia’s economic future.

“The establishment of an India Centre in Mumbai will help us better address the challenges and issues we all face in a rapidly changing world whose focus is unquestionably tilting toward Asia and in which India will play a crucial role,” said Asia Society Board of Trustees Chairman Richard C. Holbrooke.

The new India Centre will serve as a multidimensional resource, a forum for intra-Asian connections and exchange, and a high-profile platform for U.S.-South Asia dialogue. The Centre will provide year-round programming in the areas of business, policy, social issues, arts and culture. Mr. Narayana Murthy is the Centre’s Honorary Co-Chair. A number of prominent Indian business leaders have already confirmed their support, including: Sunil Mehta, AIG; Neeta and Mukesh Ambani; Akhil Gupta/Blackstone Group; Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee (Mr. Chatterjee is co-chair of the India Centre Board of Directors and a Trustee of the Asia Society); Rajiv Singh, DLF; Dheeraj G. Hinduja, Hinduja Group India Ltd.; Naresh Goyal, Jet Airways; Falguni Nayar/Kotak Mahindra Bank; and Poonam Bhagat Shroff and Jai Shroff. The Asia Society is looking to engage additional supporters to guide the Centre’s development.

The Asia Society has a long tradition of programming on India and hosting Indian dignitaries and other leading personalities at its centers around the world, such as Atal Behari Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Jairam Ramesh, Jaswant Singh, Tarun Das, Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahindra, Shabana Azmi and Malika Sarabhai, to name a few. The Society has presented notable performing artists such as Ravi Shankar, Birju Maharaj and Sitara Devi, as well as important exhibitions of traditional and contemporary Indian art.

“With Asia Society’s longstanding ties to India, and in view of increasing globalization and India’s rapid growth, the opening of the Asia Society India Centre is long overdue,” says Asia Society President Vishakha N. Desai. “It is significant that Asia Society is establishing this new center during the 50th anniversary of our founding by John D. Rockefeller 3rd. As we work to expand our reach around the world, our aim is not only to serve as a local resource on Asian business, policy, civil society and cultural issues, but also to promote intra-Asian connections and exchange—a key new area of focus for the institution.”

Plans for the India Centre are part of a major global expansion and transformation of the Asia Society from a U.S.-based institution to a global organization with active hubs throughout Asia and the United States. The Society broke ground in February for a major new building project in Hong Kong that will serve as the Society’s anchor presence in Asia. Established in 1990, the Asia Society Hong Kong Center was the Society’s first office in Asia, followed by offices in Melbourne, Manila and Shanghai. The addition of an office in India will enable the Society to further develop multidisciplinary programs on India as well as promote multilateral connections between India and the rest of Asia.

The India Centre is already engaged in a number of projects, including the organization of a delegation of U.S. state and national education policy leaders to Mumbai and Delhi, March 18-24. The 30 delegates include state commissioners of education, governors’ representatives, heads of major private foundations and leaders in science and vocational education, curriculum development and education reform. The goal of the visit is to deepen American education leaders’ understanding of India’s emergence as a major player in the global economy. Delegates will meet with scholars and policy analysts as well as representatives from the Indian Ministry of Human Resources, in an effort to lay the groundwork for a long-term program of cooperation among Indian and American education leaders.

In addition, Asia Society will host its third annual Asian Dialogue on HIV/AIDS in Mumbai in late April. The project begins with the opening of a groundbreaking photography display "Positive Lives: Stories of HIV/AIDS Throughout Asia" at the Cymroza Gallery on April 27. A daylong international symposium with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, on April 28, will bring together experts from throughout India and around the world to examine new leadership in fighting stigma and discrimination of AIDS in India, as well as the challenges and successes that the region has faced in the battle against the epidemic. The Asian Dialogue on HIV/AIDS is part of the Society’s AIDS in Asia Initiative which aims to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in Asia and to mobilize Asian decision makers and their American counterparts to build a collaborative response to Asia’s growing HIV/AIDS crisis.

The India Centre will regularly host the Asia Society's new Asia 21 Young Leaders Forum, which brings together 25 young leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. to explore shared approaches for addressing critical global issues. Sponsored by Merrill Lynch, the Asia 21 Young Leaders Forum meets twice annually, in a core group that alternates between Hong Kong and Mumbai, and through a larger conference convened each fall in a different city in Asia.

In addition to policy and business programs, the India Centre will present programming that recognizes Indian achievements in the visual and performing arts, while fostering new developments and expressions. The Society will bring a major traveling exhibition of contemporary Indian art, Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India, to the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi in late 2006. Co-organized by Asia Society and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India features work by 38 artists and collectives representing three generations, who live and work in their native India. The first major contemporary Indian art exhibition in the U.S., Edge of Desire received wide acclaim in the United States and Mexico. The Asia Society India Centre will administer a residency program for emerging contemporary artists. The goal is to bring two artists each year from Asia and the United States to India for one-month residencies during which they will create new works and collaborate with local artists. The New Delhi portion of the Edge of Desire exhibition is sponsored by Warburg Pincus. The Society will also bring Ratan Thiyam’s Chorus Repertory Theater of Manipur to the United States for a 7-city tour September 30-November 13. Co-produced by Asia Society and Lisa Booth Management, the tour is only the second U.S. tour by the epic theater group known for its visual and aural impact.

About the Asia Society 

Asia Society is the leading global organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. We seek to enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields of policy, business, education, arts, and culture. Founded in 1956, Asia Society is a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution with offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.AsiaSociety.org.

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