Australian High Commissioner to visit city tomorrow

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 16

Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu will visit the holy city on February 18. Her four-day visit to Punjab will begin from tomorrow.

In a press release issued here today, she said, “I am looking forward to visit the most important Sikhism pilgrimage site — Golden Temple. This visit is very special for me at a personal level. My parents are Punjabis. My father was born in Punjab.”

After paying obeisance at Darbar Sahib, she will visit the Partition Museum. She said, “Australia and India’s northern region enjoy close ties, particularly in education, agriculture and sport sectors. A large proportion of Australia’s Indian community comes from the region. Punjabi is among the top 10 languages spoken in Australia.”

It will be her third official visit to Punjab. She looks forward to advancing cooperation in the agriculture sector.

Sidhu will visit the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Ludhiana and talk about Happy Seeder – a technology that could address the environmental issues of stubble burning.

Happy Seeder is an excellent example of practical cooperation between Australia and India. It was developed by the Punjab Agricultural University and Australian engineers and scientists with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research a decade ago.

In Ludhiana, Sidhu will launch skill development initiatives by UDAY, a social enterprise run by Australian alumnus Param Singh —Project Mooo App.

The Project Mooo mobile application will offer dairy farmers an analytics based learning approach. The Project Mooo mobile dairy van travels from village to village to provide hands-on skills training, which supports rural women and farmers who face mobility challenges.