Aishwarya Rai, a regular at the Cannes Film Festival red carpet and L'Oreal brand ambassador, is going beyond her glitz and glamour tag. She is beginning to reinvent herself on the global scene as an activist for social and humanitarian causes.

As a step in that direction, the Bollywood diva, alongside Queen Noor of Jordan, addressed a press conference to announce the third edition of the International Tribunes Cinema Verite event that will take place in Geneva (October 6 to 8) and Paris (October 9-10) later this year. Cinema Verite is a special film event dedicated to films and social actions that promote human rights and the eight Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations.

The Cinema Verite event, hosted by the Cinema Verite Institute, has in past years seen the participation of Hollywood actors like Susan Sarandon, Meg Ryan, Ellen Birkin and Sharon Stone. Aishwarya will be the first non-Hollywood actress to lend her name to the cause.

Her husband, Abhishek Bachchan, who is here to attend the opening ceremony of the 62nd Cannes Film festival, was also present at the press meet.

This year's Cinema Verite event will include a special focus on India with the screening of Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar Raj. Aishwarya and Abhishek were the lead actors of the movie apart from Amitabh Bachchan.

Ash's latest Cannes outings are a far cry from her first apperance at the French festival where she was criticised for her bad fashion choices.

Aishwarya, who became the first Indian actress to become a part of prestigious Cannes jury in 2003, told sources, ''As a jury member at Cannes I had the experience of enjoying cinema as it is irrespective of where it come from, who is the maker from which country which is similar to the diverse Indian cinema.''