UNESCO GENERAL CONFERENCE UNANIMOUSLY
ENDORSES NEW DELHI DECLARATION
The UNESCO General
Conference has unanimously endorsed the New Delhi Declaration
on "Dialogue Among Civilisations". At its plenary session
attended by 185 member countries, the General Conference over
the week-end discussed the Delhi Declaration as an agenda item
and decided to integrate the approaches and recommendations made
in it with its future plans and actions concerning education,
science, culture and values. Earlier, the Executive Board of UNESCO
had approved the Delhi Declaration and recommended its consideration
by the General Conference as well as by the UN General Assembly.
The "Dialogue
Among Civilisations" is UNESCO’s principal programme aimed
at implementing the 31st General conference Resolution
on combating terrorism. All speakers who spoke during the debate
on the draft resolution in Paris during the 32 session, recognised
the Delhi Declaration as henceforth providing the framework for
UNESCO’s future action for international cooperation to prevent
and uproot terrorism. It decided unanimously that emphasis should
be placed as stated in Delhi Declaration on the key areas of promoting
value/quality education, inclusion of traditional and local knowledge
in science and technology, cultural diversity in all its dimensions
including world heritage and promotion of information and communication
technologies. The approaches set out in the Prime Minister, Shri
Vajpayee’s and Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli
Manohar Joshi’s addresses at the Delhi meet were acclaimed as
providing a good frame work for UNESCO future plans. The text
of Mr. Vajpayee and Dr. Joshi’s addresses were distributed to
all the delegates at the session.
The information on
the endorsement of Delhi Declaration has been conveyed to Dr.
Joshi in a letter, by India’s permanent representative at UNESCO.
