Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) held its monthly ‘Vimarsha’ lecture series on 14th October 2019, which was a panel discussion that focused on a very pertinent topic ‘Indraprastha-A Capital Journey’. The topic is highly relevant for our times as there is an absolute neglect of understanding the ancient historicity of our capital city. The eminent panel consisted of experts in the field, Dr Brij Mohan Pande, former director of Archeological Survey of India (ASI), Dr Come Carpentier de Gourdon, a French scholar on Indology, and Ms. Neera Mishra, Chairperson, the Draupadi Trust.

Kashmir has been the crest of India’s geopolitical problems, quite literally, occupying the geographical head of the country. Majority of the problem is maintained so by producing a selective propagandist hegemony and discourse by vested interests. A crucial step in this direction is to promulgate discourses about Kashmir that in many ways alienate its culture and history from the rest of the nation. Unverified statements and knee-jerk reactions in the media only help to aggravate the situation of a lack of understanding about the region.

In the run-up to the ‘SAMVAD-III: Global Hindu Buddhist Initiative on Conflict Avoidance and Environment Consciousness’, which will be held from 6th to 8th September 2019 at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the VIF held its monthly Vimarsha on 22 August 2019. Two prominent speakers were, Ven Athuraliye Rathana Thero, a renowned Buddhist monk and Member of Parliament from Sri Lanka, and Sri S Gurumurthy, a Member to the Board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, VIF, speaking about the ‘Need for Hindu Buddhist Alliance in Sri Lanka and World over’.

The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organised a lecture by Dr. Shashibala, Dean at the Centre of Indology, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi, the topic of the lecture being, ‘Faith and Empire-Tombs to Temples in China’. Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director VIF chaired the proceedings.