23rd March 2021

A Webinar on the book titled “The Living Dialogue: Socrates to Ikeda” authored by Dr N. Radhakrishnan was organized by BSG and Gandhi Media Centre on 23rd March 2021.

The webinar focused on the book titled “The Living Dialogue: Socrates to Ikeda”.

In the book, Dr Radhakrishnan focusses on President Ikeda’s numerous dialogues spanning over 40 years and captures the history of the three ‘evangelists of dialogue’ – Socrates, Plato, and Ikeda. He brings out their collective experience which leads us to acknowledging differences and discovering our common humanity as the basis for cooperation.

Eminent speakers from around the world who spoke at the webinar were Kunwar Shekhar Vijendra, Co-Founder and Chancellor, Shobhit University, Dr Gopa Sabharwal, Former Vice-Chancellor, Nalanda University, Dr Christopher C M Boey, Prof. of Paediatrics, University of Malaya, Dr Anshul Sharma, Researcher on President Ikeda, Mr. How Kian, Young Men’s Division, Vice-Chief, Soka Gakkai Malaysia, Dr C.K. Thomas, Media Expert, Dr Sethu Kumanan, Founder, Soka Ikeda College of Arts and Science for Women, Dr Namrata Sharma, Professor, State University of New York at Oswego and Dr Vidya jain (Retd.) HOD, Gandhian Studies, Rajasthan University.

On behalf of BSG, Mr Vishesh Gupta, Chairperson, Bharat Soka Gakkai, Dr Akash Ouchi, Honorary Deputy Chairperson, Bharat Soka Gakkai and Dr M. Sudarshan, Scientist (Retd.) UGC- DAE, Consortium for Scientific Research, Kolkata, addressed the gathering.

The speakers shared their views from different chapters of the book while deciphering President Ikeda’s world vision. The panellists shared how they found the book extremely significant given the fact that even Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam hailed the book as a great literary work.

In his concluding speech, Dr N Radhakrishnan thanked all the speakers for participating in the webinar and for sharing their invaluable learnings with the audience.

This webinar, attended by over 900 members and friends of BSG, was part of a series of webinars being organised to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of President Ikeda’s first visit to India in the year 1961.