"Tadia - The African Diaspora In Asia" is a network spearheaded by academic Jean-Pierre Angenot of Brazil, now temporarily based in Goa, and Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya of Britain.

India is home to several African-origin communities that live in Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. In Karnataka, the Siddis are known to be descendants of former slaves and still suffer from backwardness and poverty.

For over a week in January 2006 -- between Jan 10 and 18 -- a series of events will highlight the coming of Africans to India, sometimes as victims of the slave trade.

Besides a three-day international conference on "The African Diaspora In Asia: its past, its present and its differences and similarities with the transatlantic diaspora", the ambitious event will include several cultural and academic programmes.

Angenot said the event had been received with "keen interest".

"It makes me particularly happy to realise that this event will enable us to bring together a wide cross-section of Siddi participants from different parts of the Indian subcontinent, who have not yet met one another," he told IANS.

Most colourful perhaps will be a planned pan-African festival of music, dance and song, with participants coming in from Brazil, the island of Cape Verde, Gambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Reunion Island, and African communities settled in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India.

There will also be a festival of African cinema spread over three days and a tour to historic Siddi sites along the west coast of India, which for long connected South Asia to Africa.

These Siddi sites include the fort of Janjira, Malik Ambar's tomb, Aurangabad and Ahmadnagar -- all in Maharashtra.

In Gujarat, there are the Gori Pir Hill, Khambat and Gir forest Siddi villages. Besides locations in Hyderabad, there are also Siddi villages in the forests of the Western Ghats, Angenot said.

But Angenot admitted funding for the event remained a challenge.