Commemorating the 39th International Day of Peace and the 141st Birthday of Revered Sadhu Vaswani – A Messiah of Peace and Compassion

 The day began with the screening of documentaries of our Revered Founders – Sadhu T L Vaswani and Dada J P Vaswani. Their vision of peace and compassion and their efforts to promote the same were amply clear through these documentaries. Then videos on UN Peacekeeping and India’s contribution to international peacekeeping efforts were shown. This session ended with the announcement of a quiz on UN Peacekeeping. 

After the inaugural address by Dr. B H Nanwani, Director, SVIMS, Chief Guest, Mr. Rajiv Chandran, UN National Information Officer for India and Bhutan at United Nations Information Center India and Bhutan, took participants through the traditional and contemporary forms of peacekeeping. He stressed that the pandemic has given the world, time to relook at the agenda for peacekeeping. 

The Guest of Honor, Mr. Harish Mirchandani, Chairman, Sadhu Vaswani International School, Hyderabad, spoke about Sadhu Vaswani’s concept and practice of character-building education and its role in peace building. 

Ms. Vimla Mehra, Former DGP Arunachal Pradesh and DG Tihar, focused on Mahila Sashaktikaran (women empowerment) through self-defence and economic self-sufficiency for peace keeping operations. 

Mr. Suresh Ramdurgakar [Retd.], focused on a case study on UN Peacekeeping ground work from a management perspective. He shared details of UN Peacekeeping at Base 2003 with heart touching ground reality of survival circumstances on the deputation sights. His session ended with a question answer session that attempted to encourage management students to apply for UN Peacekeeping jobs.

 The post lunch panel discussion focused on ‘Role of Women in UN Peacekeeping’. The panelists were from different fields such as academics, CRPF deputed UN Peacekeepers and social activists.

 Ms. Shannon, Deputy President, Women in International Security, Australia discussed the involvement of women in peacekeeping and the dimension of compassion they bring to their work/operations; Ms. Maruti Joshi, IPS, SP Vigilance, Public Head Quarters, Jaipur shared her personal experiences during her deputation to United Nations Mission in South Sudan. The deliberations highlighted the fact that there should be a greater inclusion and induction of women in UN Peacekeeping operations but also importantly that women should occupy the higher echelons of peacekeeping operations.

 Ms. Kavita Ghoran, Asst. Prof. (Peace Studies) MIT-WPU, Initiator Project Steer shared her experiences in training females of various age groups in Karate, the Japanese Martial Arts.