Samosas, dal popular at Shanghai expo!

India is reaching out to the Chinese through samosas and dal at the Shanghai World Expo, where over one million people have visited the country's pavilion, organiser agency ITPO has said.

...

Regarded as the Olympics of fairs and exhibitions, the World Expo is held once in five years in different cities. This expo, different in scale and nature from the regular exhibitions, is held for a period of six months.

...

The fair will run till October 31. At the Shanghai World Expo, India figures in the list of top 10 participants among 194 countries, chairman and managing director of the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) Subas Pani said.

...

Spread over 5.28 square kilometres along the Huangpu River, the expo's theme is 'Better City, Better Life'.

Ever since it opened on May 1, the Indian pavilion - with the 'Cities of Harmony' concept - has attracted over one million visitors from different parts of China, Pani said.

...

He said the country's pavilion has two Indian restaurants "serving all types of food and snacks like samosas, dal and curries". Live cultural shows are performed daily by artistes from different parts of India, Pani said.

Featuring among the participants was Dona Ganguly, well-known Odissi dancer and wife of cricketer Sourav Ganguly. Pani said Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will visit the expo in August for the 'India Day celebrations'.

...

He said the World Expo is different as it is not devoted specifically to trade and business.

"The participating countries try to showcase their cultural and heritage, besides techno-economic developments," he said.

China had been preparing for this expo for the last eight years. It had created a metro network of 500 km in the run-up to the exhibition. The next such fair would be held at Milan, Italy, in 2015.