This is the second time in two days that the President has advocated tolerance as one of the core values of India. These core civilisation values keep us together over centuries. Despite aggression after aggression, our civilization has survived because of our core civilization values.
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President Pranab Mukherjee will next pay the first ever state visit to Palestine from October 12-13 at the invitation of his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas.
The President’s remarks come against the backdrop of lynching of a 50-year-old in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri over beef rumours and the ongoing political slugfest over it. “Tolerance and co-existence are basic tenets of our civilisation”.
He will also be meeting the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. “We look forward to continuing our multi-sectoral cooperation and further strengthening our relations in the coming years to the mutual benefit of the peoples of our two countries”, he added.
“Many heads of state of other countries may have visited Israel in the past but not many have had the honour of addressing the Knesset”, Wadhwa said.
Underlining that the global community needs to agree to a legal framework for diminishing and eventually defeating the scourge of terrorism, President Mukherjee said: ” India will continue to strive for achieving progress in the finalisation of the draft Comprehensive Convention on worldwide Terrorism, proposed by us first in 1996. “There is no end to working in the President’s office, which is considered strictly constitutional”, he said.
The President said he felt humbled on the occasion.
Despite being connected by deep defence and strategic ties, India had avoided sending the President to Israel in the past. “In a true sense, the marvel of Indian democracy has its own strength and we must celebrate that”, he said.
There has been nationwide outrage at 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq’s murder by the mob in Bisada village in UP’s Dadri last week.
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Ansari said the book is a small tribute to an eminent personality, who has a range of experience and depth of understanding of issues.
