Chandigarh. October 28, 2009: Today, in a meeting of peace lovers and volunteers of Yuvsatta, participants expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Pawan Kumar Bansal, Union Cabinet Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India, for forwarding their request and personally writing to SM Krishna, Cabinet Minister of External Affairs for visa-free travel of children from India and Pakistan.
This request from Yuvsatta members was outcome of a recently organized International Students Peace Festival, from September 27 to October 1 ’09, in Chandigarh, in which around 500 young students from ten different countries including 50 from Pakistan and different state of India had participated.
Thanking Pawan Kumar Bansal for supporting the cause of Indo-Pak people to people contact starting with young children and giving information about the development Parmod Sharma, Coordinator, shared that they believe in promoting sustainable peace on the subcontinent that counts young people from both India and Pakistan as ‘agents of change’. For which continuity in contacts is essential for better understanding and removal of misgivings. As the differences should be understood and not fought. People of the region shared thousands of years of history, heritage, traditions, but vested interests in both countries have focused on the events of the past six decades only.
He further said that now with like minded organizations in India and Pakistan, like COVA, Hyderabad and Institute for Peace & Secular Studies, Lahore they’re spearheading a campaign to first realize the dream of ‘Visa Free Travel for School Children’, between India and Pakistan. And soon a delegation of School children from Pakistan will be visiting India to press for this demand.