Kohima: The Rattle and Hum Music Society (RHMS) and the Ministry of Trade and Commerce, Government of Thailand have extended their deep appreciation to all those who supported the recently held Thailand-Nagaland Handshake Concert at Bangkok while announcing that a Thailand-Nagaland corpus fund would be instituted for future Handshake Concerts.
Addressing a joint press conference by Abu Metha, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the RHMS and Thoradol Thongruang, the representative of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce at Dimapur yesterday, where Mr Metha said the concert was a huge success and has ‘projected India, Nagaland and the North Eastern Region in a most positive manner to the international community’.
He said the route into the ASEAN region for the Indian sub-continent is through the north eastern region and it was vital that the people of the region and the ASEAN create a congenial atmosphere for the bilateral relations to be strengthened.
The Thailand Government official Mr Tharadol Thongruang revealed that the event was organised through financial investments from the RHMS and the Thailand Government and proceeds from the event would create a corpus fund that will support future endeavours of the society.
He hoped that the handshake concert was only a beginning for the relationship between the people of both regions to go from strength to strength. He also appreciated the ‘humanitarian gesture of the Naga people who donated one million rupees to victims of the recent Bangkok floods through a charity fund raising concert that was held at Kohima.’
Mr Thoradol observed that the event has generated tremendous interest on Nagaland as the event witnessed a marvelous response in terms of a full audience and positive coverage in the press and media in Thailand.
He informed that an information centre-cum-exhibition boot was set up during the concert, which attracted a lot of interest amongst the Thai people. He also hoped that such people-to-people contact and exchange programmes would create stronger bilateral ties. (UNI)