The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) India Car Rally 2012, organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), is kicking off from Monday at Yogyakarta, Indonesia with a ceremonial flag-off at Singapore. The rally will formally end in Guwahati on December 17.
The car rally marks the twentieth commemorative year of ASEAN–India relations and the tenth year of the summit level engagement, CII said in a release. Building a pan-ASEAN road connectivity with India is a goal to bring the nations and people together, it said.
The second edition of the car rally (the first was held in 2004), will wind through eight of the 10 ASEAN states. It will be flagged down in Delhi on December 20 by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the presence of 10 Heads of State from the ASEAN countries.
The car rally will include 31 Mahindra & Mahindra XUV 500 vehicles through India and eight of the 10 ASEAN countries in 22 days, covering a distance of 8,000 km. It has 124 participants from 11 nations.
The flag-down ceremony in Guwahati will be done by Anand Sharma, Union Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles, in the presence of trade ministers from the ASEAN nations .
>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.