Prez presents Gandhi Peace Prize

New Delhi: Highlighting the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi in the present scenario, President Ram Nah Kovind on Tuesday said that his ideals of achieving human liberty through conciliation by appealing to the conscience of the opponent, have influenced some of the greatest.

Speaking while presenting the Gandhi Peace Prize for the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 in the presence of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, Kovind hailed Gandhi as a visionary.

The Gandhi Peace Prize was presented to the Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari for 2015, jointly to the Akshaya Patra Foundation and the Sulabh International for 2016, to the Ekal Abhiyan Trust for 2017, and to Yohei Sasakawa for 2018. "Gandhian modes of struggle and Gandhian ideals of achieving human liberty by conciliation, by appealing to the conscience of the opponent, have influenced some of the greatest of our age.

"From Martin Luther King Jr in the United States to Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Lech Walesa in Poland, a dazzling galaxy of statespersons has learnt and borrowed from Gandhi-ji. Gandhi-ji and his thoughts are invaluable to any understanding of contemporary human history, and of the quest to redress oppression and inequity," he said. Kovind further said that in his advocacy of sustainability, ecological sensitivity and living in harmony with nature, he

anticipated some of the

pressing challenges of the present times.