Speaking at a meeting on Wednesday organised in New York by the Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC), where 2,000 people attended the event held at a hotel in Times Square as a part of the Congress Party's drive to build up its ranks among the NRIs Rahul gandhi asked the crowd :

"What happened to the tolerance that prevailed in India? What happened to the harmony?"

In his speech, he described the Congress as a "party of the NRIs", citing leaders of the freedom movement who returned to India to lead the party. His speech was interrupted often by cheers from the audience.

Gandhi said that NRIs can contribute to India from where they were or if they returned home. He mentioned Verghese Kurien, who in the post-Independent India returned from the US and brought about the white revolution that transformed the dairy industry.

"The challenge in India was to create jobs for the 30,000 young people who enter the job market every day, and of whom only 450 get employed."

He said the "current focus on 50 or 60 big companies for economic growth was not going to solve the problem and only growing small and medium scale enterprises and encouraging entrepreneurship will work".

"Millions of jobs can be created in agriculture and food," he said.

Another proposal was to network the Indian Institute of Technology's and leading universities with the industry to make them world class institutions leading in innovation.

His party had the vision for transforming India and creating jobs for the youth, he added.

Gandhi hailed Sam Pitroda, who was an adviser to his father Rajiv Gandhi and to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as another NRI who through his work on telecommunications helped transform India.

Pitroda, who has taken over the NRI mission of the Congress as the chairman of its Overseas Department, organised Rahul Gandhi's US visit.