PHOTO:FILE
Among the regular activities of Aaghaz-e-Dosti the annual Indo-Pak Peace calendar. This is a collection of selected paintings of school students from the two neighbouring countries and is launched along with a seminar in several cities in both. It also has 12 messages from renowned Indiana and Pakistani personalities working on the issue together – six from each of the two nations.
The importance of the calendar is that it is a collection of shared dreams and hopes for friendship, which the recipients will be reminded of every day. The reason Aaghaz-e-Dosti focuses on students is to enable future leaders to forge the path to a better world by engaging them with aspects of critical thinking, civic engagement, human rights and dialogue as solution.
Indo-Pak tensions
This year’s Indo-Pak Peace calendar will be the seventh edition of its kind. The previous editions have received great responses over the last six years and many schools from India and Pakistan have participated in the program.
Some of the accomplished Indian personalities that have lent their support to Aaghaz-e-Dosti are Dr S N Subbarao, professor MS Swaminathan, Satyapal, Dr Syeda Hameed, Kamla Bhasin, Shashi Tharoor, Major General (Retd) Ashok Mehta, Air Vice Marshall (Retd) Kapil Kak, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Pankaj Chaturvedi, Late Sh Pankaj Singh, Colonel Virender Sahai, Tara Gandhi and many others.
From Pakistan, the initiative has received endorsement from Dr IA Rehman, Dr Parvez Hoodbhoy, Asma Jahangir, Karamat Ali, Raza Rumi, Dr Mubashir Hasan, Khadim Hussain, Lt General (Retd) Mohammed A Alam, Imtiyaz Alam, Beena Sarwar, Kiran Nazish, Shakeel Wahiduddin Khan, Saeeda Diep, Sheema Kermani, Anwar Jafri and Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad and others.
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