Mar 29 2008
First Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize to Dalai Lama!
Hofstra University of New York announced to honor the Nobel Prize winner Dalai Lama with the first Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize of $50,000. The prize honored to those men and women who strive for interfaith dialogue.
Dalai Lama is selected from 75 individuals and groups nominated for the first prize, representing interfaith efforts in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, as well as throughout the United States and Canada.
The Dalai Lama has spoken across America on several occasions in recent years and could visit the Hofstra campus in the near future.
The Buddhist leader has shown his concern over ongoing violence in Tibet which is disturbing life of people in China and Tibet.
The biannual prize will be presented to the Dalai Lama in India on November 18 by a delegation including Hofstra officials, the family of Ishar Singh Bindra that established the prize at Hofstra, and former Prime Minister I K Gujral who is a member of the Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize Honorary Committee.
Hofstra president Stuart Rabinowitz said while announcing the prize,”There are few missions as important for a university as the advancement of understanding among all peoples. Awarding this prize allows us to recognise those who bring together people of all faiths, which now, more than ever, is important for the peace and prosperity of our world”.
He also said the university wants to establish the nation’s ‘most significant’ department of religion. The Guru Nanak award is part of efforts to boost the prestige of the department, which was set up in 2005, he said.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a graduate of Hofstra and a member of the award’s selection committee said, “I think that shows, obviously, our choice was the right one because his (Dalai Lama’s) voice is still the strong voice for peace and for understanding and for dialogue.”
T J Bindra, son of Ishar Bindra, said, “There could be no more deserving candidate than his Holiness, and to me, what stands out most is that Guru Nanak stood for brotherhood, peace and wonderful relations between communities, and I think his Holiness personifies that the best”.
He added, “Efforts like this, small as they may be, help in promoting interfaith harmony and peace”.
The prize, announced in 2006, was established through an endowment from the Bindra family to be given by Hofstra University to individuals or organisations that have worked to create religious dialogue that is indispensable to reducing religious conflict.
