Sydney: Calling on Indian diaspora to share its expertise in the motherland, Union Minister for Overseas Indians Jagdish Tytler today (Oct 29, 2004) invited Australian Indians to invest in areas like tourism, aviation, healthcare and education.

He asked the diaspora to share their expertise back in India and make India the strongest country in the world by 2020.

He said with the country opening up, there is immense opportunity for investment in the fields of tourism, open sky policy, medical and health care, infrastructure and education.

The Governments in States and at the Centre were both working towards attracting investments and making it easier for the diaspora to invest, the minister said.

He specially called on the Gujarati community, who run many hotels in Australia, to come and invest in hotels along the 10,000 km national highways.

"I personally invite you to the third Bharatiya Pravasi Diwas to be held in Mumbai from January 7 to 9," he said adding, "January 9 is an important date in India's history as on that day Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa.

"This year we are going beyond the NRIs by including all people of Indian origin."

He said the Overseas Ministry would undertake the task of tracing the history of migrants from India. "Every six months we will publish a families history booklet to make such people feel a part of the Indian culture," Tytler said.

The minister said the forms for registration of dual citizenship will be available online on Indian Consulate websites from November 1, 2004, and once the registration was done, it would take upto three months for processing.

Asked why it would take that long, Tytler said, "We have 22 million Indians in the diaspora."

To Australian Indians, he said even third and fourth generation of Indians are entitled for dual citizenship, so are Australian spouses and Australian passport holders.

He also told the gathering of 300-odd Australian Indians, "I will try and bring the Pravasi Bharatiya Awards at par with the Padma Shri."

Tytler will be visiting Fiji, New Zealand, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius.

Earlier, the Consul General of India in Sydney, M Ganapathi, welcomed the minister to Sydney.