The North-East came into sharp focus recently with the biggest ever river festival in India—Namami Brahmaputra, organized across 21 districts of Assam, from 31st March to 4 April The Chief Minister of Assam, Sarabananda Sonowal, talked of the river as “Our culture, civilization, economy and lifeline.” And it was slated as an ideal platform to showcase the trade, commerce, culture, skill development, industry and tourism of Assam to the world. A haunting tribute to celebrate the mighty river Brahmaputra was created by Angarag Mahanta, known popularly as Papon. With nationally acclaimed singers participating in the video, both the Hindi version, (where Amitabh Bachchan sang the opening lines) and the Assamese version went viral.

The event had top dignitaries including the President of India and the Dalai Lama, and held a lot of promise except for the weather gods playing spoilsport, with many events affected by the rains. But the spirit did not falter.

And it was the selfsame spirit which saw a very successful day-long North-East Public Relations Conclave soon after on the 8th of April at Guwahati. Organized by the Public Relations Society of India, Guwahati Chapter, the sessions were meaningfully contemporary. The three technical sessions saw a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility, (on which subject I spoke on Doing Good is Good for Business), the Challenges to traditional channels of communication and the leveraging of Public Relations to brand the North-East.

The Keynote address was by someone well-loved in the region, Father V. M. Thomas, Head of the Don Bosco Group of Institutions. Other speakers ranged from the head of the Assam Tourism Development Corporation, K.J. Hilaly; the Railway Recruitment Board Chairman, Trikalagya Rabha; representatives of leading oil companies of the region, the Information and Commerce Additional Chief Secretary, Ravi Capoor; to top academics and journalists and writers, PR firm owners, the PRSI National President, Dr Ajit Pathak, fashion designer Kunal Koushik, leading actress and danceuse Jaya Seal Ghosh and the pomegranate deseed innovator Uddhav Bharali who currently holds 132 patents.

A touching opening song by students of the Blind School gave a special impetus to the proceedings, followed-up by the presentation of radio sets to all of them. Communication in all its forms made its purposeful presence.

The North-East came into sharp focus recently with the biggest ever river festival in India—Namami Brahmaputra, organized across 21 districts of Assam, from 31st March to 4 April The Chief Minister of Assam, Sarabananda Sonowal, talked of the river as “Our culture, civilization, economy and lifeline.” And it wa