Anna Hazare, U T Khadar receive prestigious Gandhi Darshan awards

Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network - Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 31: It was proud moment for Mangaloreans when Karnataka minister for health and family welfare U T Khadar, who is also MLA of Mangalore constituency (Ullal) shared the stage with noted social anti-corruption activist and Gandhian Anna Hazare at the Gandhi Darshan award presentation ceremony here on Wednesday January 29.

The awards, instituted by Thiruvananthapuram-based Media Research Institute were presented by Art of Living spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar at Putharikandam Maidan.

Anna Hazare received the Special Jury Lifetime Achievement Award, while U T Khadar and senior journalist and well-known writer in Malayalam T P Rajeevan received the prestigious Gandhi Darshan award for rural health and literature, respectively.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar inaugurated the award ceremony.

Anna Hazare spoke to the people of Kerala for the first time in this function and asked them to walk the path of Gandhi and to
remember brave freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev at the same time.

"I have no money, I have no luxury and I live in a temple. Still, I took the wicket of six union ministers," he said.

Hazare said that an award in the name of Mahatma Gandhi was worth more than the Padma awards and all other awards he had received so far.

Quoting the Mahatma, he said that development should start from the villages.

“The nation will not develop unless the villages develop. We should always remember our freedom fighters and their struggle even if we were not part of it or we have not witnessed it,” Hazare said.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that people like Hazare were keeping Gandhi’s tradition alive.

“In this country, we honour people who have selflessly served the nation. There are three qualities such persons should possess: clarity in mind, purity in action and spontaneity of action,” he said.

“We are sitting on a gold mine. India is a treasure trove of natural resources compared to the rest of the world. Still, we fail to utilise them efficiently. The same is true of our human resource. It is important to realise ourselves in order to achieve development,” Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said.

Swamy Gururethnam Jnana Tapaswi of Shantigiri Ashram presided over the function.

A campaigning of Gandhian ideologies was also launched at the function and well-known orator K P A Rahim inaugurated the lecture series as part of it.