By Matters India Reporter

Bangaluru: Dharmaram Vidya Kshethra (DVK) and Christ University are hosting 13th “Assembly of World Religions” here beginning April 19.

The April 19-21 event has chosen the theme “Accept, Respect and Celebrate the Diversity.”

The World Fellowship of Inter-Religious Council (WFIRC) is organizing the whole programme.

Representatives from all the religions including the personal secretary of His Holiness Dalai Lama are attending it and are scheduled to address on various aspects of the theme.

The main focus of WFIRC is to strive for the promotion of communal harmony and world peace, arrange inter-religious dialogues, seminars and prayer meetings with a view to promote inter-religious harmony, clarify and stress the role of religion in a plural religious and multicultural society, and create a society free from all religious conflicts and tensions.

“When goodness flourishes in each individual, it revives a new culture in our society, the culture of love, truth, justice, tolerance, and equality. The power to promote universal harmony by celebrating different religious festivals and creating a new culture that is free from all religious conflicts” said an organizer, who requested anonymity.

WFIRC organized World Assembly of Religions all over India and abroad in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014.

M.K.K.Nair, Advocate P.K.Shamsuddin and Fr. Albert Nambiaparambil CMI are the founder members of WFIRC.

The WFIRC was registered as an interfaith body, back in 1983. In 1981 three interfaith friends—Nair, Shamsuddin and Fr. Nambiaparambil formed an ad hoc committee with the aim of organizing a World Conference of Religions in Kochi Kerala, India.

This Conference was planned to mark the tenth anniversary of the foundation of Chavara Cultural Centre, the tenth year of the world conference of Religions in Shasthamkotta, Kerala, the 15th century of the Hijra and the 150th year of the foundation of the CMI (Carmelite Congregation). The Conference of Religions was organized in Chavara Cultural Centre, Kochi, from the 15 to the 21st of November 1981 on “Religion and Man”. As a follow up to this meet, in 1983 WFIRC was founded.