KL News Network
SRINAGAR
Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is slated to launch South Asia Forum for Peace on Tuesday in Jammu where it is organizing a day long Paradise Conference. One of the AoL director Sanjay Kumar will be the Forum’s first director, a statement issued by AoL said.
The conference, according to the statement, “is intended to bring in a new dawn Kashmir Valley.” Sri Ravi Shankar is slated to address the conference in Abhinav Theatre. “The theme would be to bring back the peace which has eluded the valley for long.” Others who are key resource persons include Dr Nissar Ali, Prof A G Madhosh, Nizamuddin Bhat, Yousuf Taing, Lt Gen Subrata Saha and Dr Ashok Aima.
“The intention of launching this new platform is to forge together the countries in the South-Asian region, where cooperation, peace and progress have sometimes been evasive,” the statement said. “There are nine countries in the region and the forum will strive to bring them together on various aspects such as peace, growth, entrepreneurship, skill developmental progress, exchange of cultural ambassadors, promote educational partnerships, women’s empowerment many such initiatives.”
The statement said without peace, development of societies is impossible. “This Forum will thus ensure peace will become the primary focus of all in the days to come,” the statement said. “One of the very first endeavour of this Forum will be focused on Kashmir. This beautiful valley of diversities is currently undergoing a traumatic phase. Peace which transcended this vale for the longest period, now needs some healing touch from well meaning folks.”
The statement said that in Kashmir, stake-holders are many and are multi-faceted. “Art of Living is sincerely aspiring, via this forum the much required respite to the people of Kashmir. Conflict resolution is the primary task here where specially the youth have become restless, have taken to violence and are heading towards radicalization of their faith. The elderly, women and children have become vulnerable and have become the unfortunate victims of this deadly cycle of violence. Shri Sanjay Kumar has been quite successful in bringing many stake-holders together. The hopes are high, both within Kashmir and outside,” the statement said.
The statement said the November 23, will become the defining date in the history of Kashmir.
The objective of the Conference, the AoL said, is to provide a platform to diverse stakeholders from Kashmir such as ex militants, stone pelters, victims of militants, youth leaders, women, entrepreneurs, selected Kashmiri NGOs, Sufi leaders, academicians, and media.
Sri Ravi Shakar, it may be recalled here, has been involved in Kashmir for a long time. It may not be possible to offer any idea about its influence in Kashmir but the AoL laving has got a huge photo-repository in which its founder has almost a photograph with almost everybody.
Earlier MoS Home was slated to grace the occasion but his name is missing in the final programme.
