Dalai Lama to open World Peace Festival in Pune

PUNE - Retired super cop and social activist Kiran Bedi and some of the eminent scientists and educationists will participate in the World Peace Festival here Oct 10, which Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama will inaugurate, organisers said.

The Tej Gyan Foundation, a Pune-based charitable trust, has organised the programme — “World Peace…Piece by Piece” to champion the cause of peace.

As a part of this movement, the Tej Gyan Foundation had organised ten events for the first ten months of the year in various parts of India to promote the cause of peace, its official said.

“All actions and thoughts have a bearing on peace, personal as well as social. Without peace, no human aspirations can be realised. It is no more a choice but is a human necessity,” Bedi said.

The end of the initiative — “Happy Thoughts - World Peace Festival” — will be organised across more than 50 cities in the country on the same day.

The flagship event in Pune shall be inaugurated by the Dalai Lama and is expected to attract an audience of over one lakh people.

Bedi will highlight the role of women in world peace.

“Woman is the cradle of the ‘first lesson’ of peace. She is the one from whose lap peace is born. And if that lesson is well given and well taught, peace prevails,” she said.

Bedi stressed the importance of learning the art of peace and peacekeeping early in life.

“Each person contributes as a member of the nation to the world peace. Indians will contribute to world peace by remaining a civilised country,” she said.

Padmashree awardees former special CBI director D.R. Kaarthikeyan, computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar, Symbiosis International University chancellor S.B. Mujumdar, and founder of Sounds True, a multi-media publisher dedicated to disseminating spiritual wisdom, Tami Simon will also speak at the programme.