Many faces of peace

A book in Gujarati on the theme of peace by Dr Homi Dhalla, founder and president of the World Zarathushti Cultural Foundation, was released by former President of India Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam at the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad on November 11, 2011. Kalam also inaugurated the electronic library of the Institute on that day, as per an e-mail received from Dhalla.
Dhalla explains the genesis of the book. When Kalam was President he had launched an interfaith body, inviting leaders from various traditions to establish the Foundation for the Unity of Religions and Enlightened Citizenship. Dhalla was invited to be its Zoroastrian representative. At one of the meetings of the apex body held at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Kalam initiated a discussion on peace and violence. As a result of the challenging dialog that followed, Dhalla decided to make a power point presentation titled "Many faces of peace.” This is now a CD which deals with the concept of peace from a holistic and global point of view and has been shown at many meetings and conferences globally.

Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam releasing Dr Homi Dhalla’s book

Dhalla mentions that when his presentation was being shown at the Parliament of the World’s Religions at Mel­bour­ne, Australia in December 2009, Dr Jitendra Shah, director of the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology was impressed with the 140 or so images, each with appropriate and relevant text. Shah was responsible for translating the text into Gujarati and publishing the images in the form of a book to be used as an educational tool for students in schools and colleges in Gujarat.
This year another organization will translate the CD into Tamil, so that millions of students who are conversant with that language may receive Dhalla’s message of peace, the e-mail mentions.