In order to commemorate Swami Vivekananda’s 156th birth anniversary this year, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organized a panel discussion on ‘Swami Vivekananda and Nation Building’ on 17th January 2019
In commemoration of 125 years of Swami Vivekananda’s famous Chicago speech, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), New Delhi, invited Sister Nivedita Raghunath Bhide, the Vice President of Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari to dwell upon the subject of ‘Swami Vivekananda and his Contemporary Relevance’ as part of the Vimarsha session of public talks.
With the gruesome Delhi gang-rape of last December shaking up the conscience of this very nation, also providing a strong stimulus for course correction measures, a talk on 'Swami Vivekananda on Women: Meeting the Contemporary Challenges' was organized by Vivekananda International Foundation on January 28, 2013, with Shri Dhanendra Kumar, former Secretary Culture, Govt. of India and former Executive Director World Bank as the chief speaker.
Mr Jagmohan, the fiesty former governor of J&K gave an impassioned talk on Civilisational Imperatives and India's Nation Building at the VIF on 29 July,2010. He defined civilisation as the manifestation of the intellectual, cultural, social and moral attainments of a community. He then evaluated India's civilisational developement in these terms. Very pertinently he asked- the freedom struggle had thrown up a large number of stalwarts and great leaders. Why have we failed to produce great thinkers and reformers in the post- independence era? He dilated upon his own efforts for reforming the Vaishno Devi Shrine which today attracts over 80 lakh pilgrims a year (up from just 5 lakhs in 1990) and to encourage research on the Saraswati River and Vedic civilisation. He spoke of the need to revisit the core of Hinduism - that life is all divinity and we are aspects of that divinity. There is a need to go back to the Vedic/Upanishadic roots of Hinduism today and purge it of subsequent malpractices/distorted customs.