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Struggle for peace must be a quest for equality: Ansari

PANAJI: Asserting that the struggle for world peace must be a quest for equality, justice and democracy, Vice-President Mohammed Hamid Ansari has said the modalities of furthering it will inevitably be conditioned by public awareness and public action.

He was delivering the first lecture at the four-day “D.D. Kosambi festival of ideas” organised by the Goa government here .

Earlier, Mr. Ansari inaugurated the lecture series in the presence of Governor S.C. Jamir, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, sociologist and D.D. Kosambi’s daughter Meera Kosambi.

In his lecture, Mr. Ansari paid rich tributes to D.D. Kosambi’s “encyclopaedic personality, which endeared him to scholars beyond the fields of mathematics and numismatics.”

He sought to explore the passion for peace and its relevance to the world in present times as a tribute to Kosambi’s vision of peace for development.

Mr. Ansari said Kosambi was an active fighter for peace and, in the times of the Cold War, spent time analysing the causes that prevented peace.

“Peace must be demonstrated to be good in value terms as also in practical terms since war can demonstrate to be genuinely a half truth,” said Mr. Ansari.

In Kosambi’s vision, “peace was the pre-requisite for development and that true peace requires true democracy where all human beings are equal.”

Dwelling on the dangers of war and nuclear proliferation, he said a global society based on justice had no place for war.

Referring to ongoing worldwide initiatives for controlling the nuclear arms race, he said a world without nuclear weapons required the political will to build the required international consensus or guarantees, a task not easily accomplished.

Ms. Meera Kosambi, delivering a talk on ‘D.D. Kosambi, the Scholar and the Man,’ said her father was not an ivory tower scholar and his works were of practical utility and social relevance.

Describing D.D. Kosambi as a renaissance man, Ms. Kosambi said his intellectual canvas was vast.

Mr. Kamat announced his desire to make D.D. Kosambi’s life and accomplishments part of school curriculum in Goa.

He cited the government’s plan to renovate and look after the dilapidated “Samadhi” of the illustrious Goan at Vardha.

Earlier, Mr. Ansari inaugurated a photo exhibition of P. Sainath, Magsaysay award winner and journalist, on “Visible Work Invisible Women.”

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Struggle for peace must be a quest for equality: Ansari

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