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New Mahavir Mahatma Awards
On the weekend of Mahavir Jayanti the first national Mahavir Mahatma Awards and the launch of The Oneness Forum were held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The Global Oneness Initiative of the Times Foundation is a prestigious project with a goal of uniting people around the globe for collective actions in order to save not only what we have, but to transform the planet socially and politically, through a process of spiritual awakening. The Mahavir Mahatma Awards are a series of prestigious awards which were declared and presented at district, state and national levels on 22 April by many dignified Chief guests. They included Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Vice-President Shri Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil, Defence Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Soka Gakkai dignitaries from Japan, industrialist B.K Modi, Shri Mahamantra Das. Musician A. R. Rehman graced the occasion in an illuminating ceremony. The function began with Mahavir Stuti which was followed by prayer offerings to Tulsi. This new project is being promoted particularly to the youth to encourage a feeling of motion into the future.
Mrs. Indu Jain's speech enthralled the audience and urged them to unite in this endeavour of creating oneness not only in small communities but across the globe. She also remarked on the auspicous timing of the event, "For the first time in history, a Sikh Sardar like Mr. M.S.Bitta being a non jain celebrating Mahavir Jayanti was a great step towards Oneness."
Some of the winners included Martha Merchant of Baha'i Foundation, Hiromasa Ikeda on behalf of Dr. Daisaku Ikeda from Soka Gakkai International (SGI), Tushar A. Gandhi from Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, Ranjit Makkuni and Dr. Madhu Khanna from Sacred World Foundation, musician A. R. Rehman, Namman Ji from Oneness University and Shashi Kumar Nair from Mata Amritanandamayi Ashram.
Hiromasa read out Dr. Daisaku Ikeda's acceptance speech and said: "Given the greatness of the two giants whose names adorn this award, its recipient bears an enormous weight of expectation for he or she must be actively engaged in the worthiest of endeavours to establish lasting peace for humanity in the 21st century."
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