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Acharya Mahapragya is one of the most celebrated Jain thinkers of the world and is the tenth Acharya of the Jain Shwetambar Terapanth sect. Born in 1920 in a village in Rajasthan, he became a monk at the age of ten.
He got his education under the guidance of Acharya Shree Tulsi, who launched the Anuvrat Movement in 1949 to rid the world of violence and hatred and free religion from sectarianism. A multidimensional personality and a renowned scholar of Indian and Western philosophy and religion, Acharya Mahapragya is a prolific writer and has been called a 'modern Vivekananda'. He has traversed more than 100,000 km on foot and visited 10,000 villages to spread the message of non-violence. To this purpose he embarked on a Ahimsa Yatra in 2001. He was honoured with the Communal Harmony Award in 2004 for his contribution in this field.
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was the President of India from 2002 to 2007, and is the recipient of the nation's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. Born in 1931
in Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr Kalam studied aeronautical engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology. He played a key role in the development of India's first satellite launch vehicle, the SLV-3, and in the building and operationalization of India's strategic missile systems. As an elder statesman, he remains in the public eye for his role in offering counsel, reaching out to people and building bridges across religious and social divides. Dr Kalams focus stays on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 and to this end he has met and enthused three million youth.
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