Advisor to Chief Minister Prof Amitabh Mattoo today pitched for open dialogue, consideration for others, agreement on core values and expanding the constituency to agreeable intent to achieve world peace.Delivering a lecture on ‘Building Sustainable Peace in a Troubled World’ as part of Maharaja Gulab Singh Memorial Lecture series, he said that the idea and concept of peace has been deeply ingrained fundamentally in every successful culture, society, philosophy. He however noted that though world is engaged with the context of peace still we are unclear about what are the ways to achieve it.The Member of Parliament Dr Karan Singh was also present on the occasion. Talking about troubled times the world is seeing, he said that this century is turning out to be the bloodiest century till date with mass conflicts, violence ailing almost every region in the world. The stability of the world seems to be on the verge of collapsing. There is no part of the world, not one continent where you can’t see large scale violence. The deep struggles happening around the world cannot be generalised in any one theoretical preposition, he noted with concern.
Elaborating further, he said there is a need to evolve a mechanism and implement it at various levels to achieve this goal. “The action is needed at individual level, national level and international level” he said adding the essentials for the same are open dialogue, consideration for others and most importantly, an agreement on core values and expanding the constituency to agreeable intent.Prof Amitabh Mattoo also paid tributes to the contribution of Maharaja Gulab Singh in founding and creating not only the empire but especially the unity he created within this extraordinary diversity that is Jammu and Kashmir. India is a celebration of diversity and Maharaja’s role in creating the same in Jammu Kashmir is a substantial one, he said.Dr Karan Singh in his address said that the major threats the human race is facing are possibility of a nuclear war, climate change and international terrorism. He further said that the only scenario for human race is either total annihilation or an evolution in the race.He said that education is the only solution for achieving global peace since wars begin in the minds of men and it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.Dr Singh said to achieve peace at a global level, it needs to be first achieved at regional, national, social, family and individual level.Senior functionaries of state and central departments including members of Maharaja Gulab Singh Memorial Trust and civil society members were present at the lecture.