CHENNAI: Hundreds of Indians and Tibetans jam-packed the periphery of Music Academy, Chennai today to witness the maiden Abdul Kalam Seva Ratna awards 2015 being honoured by His Holiness the Dalai Lama despite a thunderstorm in the city.
The award ceremony was introduced by the Abdul Kalam Vision Movement and supported by the Madras Management Association (MMA). It aspires to recognise and honour individuals or organisations contributing in creating a developed India as reinforced and envisioned by the late former President of India Dr. ABJ Abdul Kalam.
Dignitaries at the mega occasion include Mr. V. Ponraj, the Scientific Advisor of the late President, Mr. T. Shivaraman, President of the MMA, Mr. T. S. Krishnamurthy, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr. D. R. Karthikeyan, former CBI special director and Dr. Nazeema Bagum, niece of the late President.
Addressing the gathering, His Holiness the Dalai Lama initially expressed his heartiest greetings to the awardees and urged them to work harder and continue their contributions. He also paid reverence to the late President and thanked the organisation for the invitation.
Considering the huge materialistic development in the recent history, His Holiness said that people should also focus on developing inner peace to attain peaceful mind. His Holiness also mentioned that the essence of inner peace is certainly apparent since there are many people abroad who are highly developed in materialism and modern education yet living relatively unhappy lives.
Appreciating India’s ‘unity in diversity’, His Holiness said that India is the only country where all the major religions live harmoniously, possessing rich blend of profound ancient knowledge on human emotions and modern science.
Calling for the younger generation to work for the better world, His Holiness said that the generation of the 20th century has caused enough chaos in the world and the responsibility is on the 21st generation to work find the solution.
“If we really start to make effort now, within your lifetime latter part of the 21st century can be more peaceful, more harmony, more compassionate world. All these problems essentially are man-made problems, our own creation so, logically we must have the ability to reduce the problem and eventually can eliminate it.”
Since the entire humanity revolves in interdependency, His Holiness demanded mutual understanding among people and added, “We need ‘Sense of Oneness’ among seven billion human beings. All the rest of the seven billion human beings are our brothers and sisters. Then there is no business to kill them. Different faith, different race, different caste; all these are minor, not important. Important is that we are same human being, mentally, emotionally, physically, all have same rights to achieve happiness.”
His Holiness also shared his views on the need of serious attention on the current education system, which mainly focus on physical aspects. He stated that more efforts should be rendered on an overall development of people. He further suggested that destructive emotions should be reduced and constructive emotion must be increased.
“Since the basic innate nature of human being is compassionate then there is hope if we use human intelligence according to our basic human nature, then we can build happy humanity, happy world,” His Holiness concluded optimistically.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama honoured the Abdul Kalam Seva Ratna Awards 2015 to the top organisations amongst five categories; Tree Plantation and Growing Mission, Reviving Water Bodies Mission, Providing Safe Drinking Water Mission, Creating Clean and Green Campus, Village and City Mission and the De-addiction Mission.
The Abdul Kalam Seva Ratna Award comprise of a gold medal, a 10gm gold coin, a citation and certificate apart from a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh.