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and lent all-out cooperation. He made great donations for General Hospitals, Universities, and creation of public education institutions. Services towards Education, Literature, Culture and Religion:
With the rise of his good deeds in his previous lives, justful policies in Industry and Business and extra-ordinary business skill, he earned wealth very rapidly and with the increase of wealth, the family turned to make large charity for social and cultural works. This can be seen from some of his following works: -
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Established Moortidevi Girls school in Najibabad in 1921.
Started scholarships titled Moortidevi Scholarships under the auspices of Sahoo Jain Trust. The scholarships are granted for Shastri Degree at Syadvad Mahavidyalaya, Benaras, and Acharya, M.A. Ph.D. and D.Litt. degrees. Many students have taken advantage of these scholarships upto now and have given their services in the fields of Religion, Scriptures, Literature, History, and Sanskrit and Prakrit languages.
and (iv) Bharatiya Gnanpith and Moortidevi Granthmala. Shri Shantiprasadji Sahoo established the two great institutions on 18-2-1944 with the consent and co-operation of his family. High level literature, both old and modern is being published in Sanskrit, Hindi, Prakrit, English, Tamil, Kannad and other languages. About 100 books have been published from these publishing houses so far. The books are edited in modern style.
Gnanpith Award: An award of Rs.1,50,000 is granted for the best book written and published in the 14 national languages listed in our constitution. The subjects must be about mankind, humanity and national culture. Covering him with a Shawl on his shoulders honors the author. Such literary activity of national level has not been on record in the history of India ever before and therefore, we respect the promoters of this activity for their nobility, love for literature, patriotism and fore-sightedness.
Contribution in Journalism:
Shri Shantiprasadji had wide industrial and business dealings and hence he had to create relations with advertisement media, periodicals and newspapers. In around 1945, the publication of NavBharat Times began from Delhi and in 1955, the Benett Colmann Company was taken over by the Sahoo family from its original proprietor of Times of India. Since these days he has worked to maintain highest efficiency of his group in Indian Journalism. He ensured that the propagandist activities be full of varieties, highly attractive and of highest level in its quality to create deep-most impressions on the on lookers. They maintained high level of English language but simultaneously granted even higher importance to Hindi language thereby supporting the national level of Hindi in all features of life.
In addition to this he rendered help, openly as well as secretly too many schools, Pathshalas (schools for religious study), libraries, research institutes and numberless poor students.
Special Religious Services:
The celebrations of the 2500th day of Lord Mahavir's eternal journey to heaven were successfully held at regional, national and international levels. The highest credit for these celebrations if at all it is to be given; it can be given only to Shri Shantiprasadji Sahoo. He made best use of his personal relations and inspired the President, Vice-President and Prime Minister of these days to take part in these celebrations, he got sufficient land allocated for the Grand National memorial of Lord Mahavir at Delhi through the Government. He was the working President of this widespread celebrationcommittee. It was he who encouraged for creating various Jain Committees at District, State and National levels so that these celebrations do not remain confined to big cities only but also expand upto very small villages of the country thereby carrying the message of world-friendship, equal respect for all religions and spirituality of Lord Mahavir to these remote places. He had spared the buildings of his offices at Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and other places for this purpose. The credit of bringing
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