Bhubaneswar: Union Cabinet Minister Parshottam Rupala on Saturday graced the closing ceremony of a 3-day International Conference on ‘Kalinga and Southeast Asia: The Civilisational Linakges’ on KIIT Campus.
Inaugurating valedictory ceremony as Chief Guest, the Union Cabinet Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying said India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with rich cultural heritage. The country is endowed with an extraordinary strength that sailed her through the freedom struggle, and also asserted that every Indian must take pride in its heritage as the country moves forward on the path of development, he stressed.
Guest of Honour Dr. Chanthourn Thuy, Deputy Director General, Institute of Culture and Fine Arts, Royal Academy of Cambodia, said that overseas trade and maritime activities played a significant role in the spread of the glorious Indian civilization abroad. Indians and more specifically the people of Kalinga went to Southeast Asia and established colonies there, he added.
Chairperson of PG Council, Utkal University Prof. Navaneeta Rath highlighted that Kalingans were the pioneers in the process that led to the transition to a true global system of cultural and commercial exchange.
Joining the 2nd international conference virtually, former bureaucrat of Gujarat-cadre Dr. S. K. Nanda, IAS (Retd.) said the maritime trade of Kalinga brought prosperity to the kingdom which could largely be attributed to her overseas trade with distant lands like Indonesia, so much so that the maritime trade successes became the bone of contention between the Magadhan/Mauryan empire and Kalinga.
Professor, School of Humanities, Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya & Chairman, One Asia Foundation Dr. Chandi Prasad Nanda, who gave the closing remarks on the conference, said as the complexities underlying civilizational linkages between Kalinga and Southeast Asia came to be posed, the big story of ‘New Asianism’ ,‘Asia as future’ , ‘Asian century’ and ‘Asian values’ by default have come under trenchant scrutiny, he added.
Asia which has continued to be deployed so far as a useful term of alterity for Europeans, in terms of ‘us’( for Europeans) and ‘them’( for Asians) stands reversed as delineated through the thoughts of the research scholars, he informed.
While chairman of the conference and Director of IMS, Utkal University Prof. Upendra Padhi gave the welcome address, convenor and former professor of Sambalpur University Prof. Patit Paban Mishra presented the conference report. At the end, certificates were distributed among the scholars who presented their research papers in the technical sessions.
Earlier on the day, the fifth plenary session was organised where former Vice-Chancellor of Burdwan University Prof. Smriti Kumar Sarkar, Associate Professor of International Relations Department, University of Jember, Indonesia Dr. Abubakar Eby Hara, former Dean of National Defence Academy Dr. Subhransu Sekhar Misra and Professor of Department of History, University of Calcutta Dr. Raj Sekhar Basu debated on the topic ‘Contemporary Scenario: India’s Act East Policy; Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region and the ASEAN Union’.
The second edition of the international conference was kicked off on Thursday with presence of President of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit.
