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Kent Mayor Dana Ralph and two other city officials recently traveled to India to learn more about Indian culture and economic development opportunities.
In October, Ralph, City Councilmember Toni Troutner and Kent Economic and Community Development Director Kurt Hanson joined a 16-member delegation of Washington state mayors and council members on a trip to India. The delegation included State Sen. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, and local mayors and a few city council members from Issaquah, Tukwila, SeaTac, Mukilteo, University Place and DuPont, according to the Consulate General of India, Seattle.
The trip was sponsored by the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), a private university in Bhubaneswar in the Odisha province of India. KIIT is currently building alliances with Washington colleges for academic and industrial exchanges. According to Ralph, the university has memorandums of understanding with the University of Washington’s Seattle and Bothell campuses and Seattle University, and is also working with Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.
“They put the delegation together to really just come and deepen our understanding of India as a country and a culture, knowing that all of us in these cities have a large Indian population,” Ralph said. “It was an amazing opportunity to be able to go and learn more about a country, the largest democracy in the world.”
The Sunday-to-Sunday (Oct. 11-18) trip included nearly four days of travel and stops in three regions of India. The delegation started in New Delhi, visited the Taj Mahal, spent a couple of days at the university in the Odisha province and traveled home from Mumbai.
“I think it’s fair to say the country as a whole is really invested in the education of the next generation and what that looks like for advances in technology and medicine and all of those kinds of things,” Ralph said. “I really do think it’s something that the country is committed to.”
The primary focus of the trip was visiting KIIT and its sister institution, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), which operates a K-12 grade school alongside higher education programs. Ralph said KISS educates children from 69 indigenous tribes in the Odisha province facing extreme poverty, limited infrastructure and a lack of educational opportunities.
“KISS’s focus is to take these kids, not only teach them in their own language, so 19 different languages that they’re educating students in, but then also in Hindi and English and just give them an opportunity then to ultimately attend a university,” Ralph said. “So that mission is pretty amazing.”
During the campus tour, the delegation met with about 20,000 elementary and middle school students. Ralph said she was impressed by the logistics of gathering the students in one place.
“They were all in straight lines sitting on the field and I just kept thinking, there is no way that when my kids were little they would have sat that still and paid that much attention,” Ralph said.
Who paid for trip
Prakash Gupta, Consul General of India in Seattle, selected and invited the delegation of elected officials after building relationships with local cities since the Seattle consulate opened a couple of years ago. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), a private university in India, covered 100% of the travel expenses for Ralph and Troutner as part of the official elected delegation.
The city of Kent paid for Hanson’s travel costs because he was not part of the official elected delegation. Public records indicate the city spent $2,889 for Hanson to attend. Kyle Moore, city of Kent government affairs and regional policy manager, said Hanson wanted to help build connections with the business community as Kent’s Indian residential and business populations continue to grow.
“We have so many Indian businesses, Indian-American businesses here in the city of Kent that it just made sense for him to also have a better understanding of culture and where folks come from,” Ralph said.
The Consulate General of India in Seattle stated in a Facebook post about the trip:
“The engagements explored opportunities to strengthen India-Washington state ties through economic cooperation, academic exchanges and people-to-people partnerships.”
While in India, the delegation met with the country’s Minister of External Affairs to discuss economic development and partnerships. For Kent, those conversations centered on India’s growing space sector and how it connects to aerospace and space industry work in the Kent Valley.
Ralph said she was grateful for the hospitality and the opportunity to explore both academic and economic partnerships.
“We’ve got a lot of Indian-American entrepreneurs and business owners here in Kent and so I think anytime you can better understand the culture, the more successful you are in building those relationships,” Ralph said.
Diwali Day proclamation
After the Nov. 3 Kent City Council meeting, Mayor Ralph presented a proclamation and lighted a candle recognizing Nov. 8 as Diwali Day, according to a Nov. 4 City Council newsletter.
The Consulate General of India, Seattle posted photos and comments Nov. 4 on its Facebook page about the proclamation.
“Thank you Hon’ble Mayor Dana Ralph and members of the Kent City Council for issuing a proclamation on Diwali and honouring India’s rich cultural traditions,” according to the post.
Consulate General of India, Seattle also posted about other government bodies recognizing Diwali Day, including Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, King County Council and the city councils of Seattle, Auburn, Everett, Marysville, Kirkland, Bellevue, Tukwila, Bothell, SeaTac, DuPont, Spokane, Edmonds, Redmond, University Place, Lynnwood, Tacoma, Mukilteo, Issaquah, Snoqualmie and Duvall.
Elected representatives from Kent, Issaquah, Tukwila, University Place, Mukilteo, SeaTac and DuPont were part of the trip to India.
The Consulate General of India, Seattle, in a Nov. 11 Facebook post said numerous official state and city proclamations were dedicated to Diwali celebrations across the Pacific Northwest.
“The largest-ever Diwali celebrations across the region witnessed an extraordinary wave of official recognition, with 25 proclamations issued by states, counties and cities honouring India’s Festival of Lights,” according to the post. “From state capitols to county councils and city halls, elected leaders celebrated Diwali’s universal message of hope and togetherness, recognised the invaluable contributions of Indian-American communities and reaffirmed the growing bonds of India–US friendship.”
Editor Steve Hunter contributed to this article.
