Kochi is gearing up for the Amritavarsham50 celebrations, an international congregation that would involve representatives from all 191 UN member countries.
To be held from September 24 to 27 at the International Stadium, the event commemorates the Golden Jubilee birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi, Kerala's most famous spiritual leader, popularly known as Amma.
The programme will be attended by the president of India, vice-president of India, deputy prime minister of India, and business leaders, opinion makers, celebrities and lakhs of devotees from throughout India and the world.
The theme of the programme is 'Embracing the World for Peace and Harmony.'
The highlight of the four-day mega event will be a two-day summit (on September 26 and 27) of a highly select group of top chief executive officers and business leaders from around the world.
Swami Amritaswarupananda, the chairperson of the international organising committee, said the meet would be presided over by the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, in the presence of Amma.
A highly select group of top CEOs and business leaders from around the world would attend the summit to discuss how to transform India into an economically secure, spiritually strong global leader among nations by 2020.
Among the participating CEOs are Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries Ltd), S P Hinduja (Hinduja Group), S Ramadorai (TCS), A Ramakrishna (Larsen & Toubro), D Shibulal (Infosys Technologis), M S Ramachandran (Indian Oil Corporation), Rajan Mittal (Bharti Televentures) and Rajiv Chandrasekhar (BPL) from within the country.
And from the US, there would be BV Jagadeesh (Netscaler), Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail), Desh Deshpande (Sycamore), Prem Jain (Cisco), Kanwal Rekhi (Ensim), C K Prahalad and others.