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far considered Jain religion as a rival of Hindu religion. The misconception is cleared today. Jain religion is a religion of humanity and we shall be happy to publish material in our journal on Jain Philosophy".
Mr. Benton Mussel White, a leading lawyer and environmentalist had come from USA to participate in the Rio Earth Summit NGO conferences. His dream was to give shape to a movement that could bring the universe together and transform the United Nations into a truly representative institution of the peoples of the world. He organized a big meeting at the large sports stadium of Rio and presented his plan of one world now" Guruji, Gautam and myself were very cordially invited to it. We struck a good friendship with Benton, who kept on consulting us for furthering his plans. He appreciated the stress on Non-violence. He televised a detailed interview with Guruji and me for his “One World Now”.
Mrs. Hanne Strong was our host in Rio in her capacity as President of the Manitou Foundation and key sponsor of the Wisdom Keepers' Convention. Hanne Strong is the wife of Mr. Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the Earth Summit. Her presence in Rio at the Earth Summit was not merely as a better half of her distinguished husband, but in her own role as a dynamic and forceful personality advocating awareness about the spiritual dimension of the environmental crisis.
She had invited sixty prominent persons the world over including Guruji and me. Mr. Maurice Strong knew me from the days of the 1972 Stockholm Conference when as India's Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative at the U.N. I was elected as Vice President of the U.N. preparatory committee for the first ever U.N. Conference on Environment at Stockholm. All of us-sixty persons were put up at a gorgeous ranch of a Brazilian industrialist outside the city of Rio but close to the site of the Earth Summit. Professors, scholars, saints, priests, authors, and poets, musicians, photographers, journalists and diplomats, thinkers and
Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner * (161)
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