11 Jan, Ahmedabad: Shri L K Advani has demanded the strictest action against those involved in perpetrating the Satyam scam, where Rs 7000 crores have vanished off the balance sheet and the fate of 55000 employees hang in the balance. The Government cannot turn a blind or lenient eye to such fraudulent practices, he added.
Addressing the Global Summit of the Jain International Trade Organization in Ahmedabad, Shri Advani said that India has all the potential to grow into a giant economy. The successes of Indian entrepreneurs in recent times, both in India and abroad, have been spectacular. “But as Gandhiji used to exhort, business without ethics is sin. Even if a few business organizations indulge in unethical practices, they bring a bad name to the business community as a whole. Corporate India must put its house in order.”
He also called Jainism the most ancient Green Movement in world history. He pointed out that most people do not often appreciate why Jainism attached such paramount importance to ahimsa. However, two of the greatest challenges before the world today–Terrorism and Climate Change–are both manifestations of violence.
He added that “terrorism is of course the most extreme and inhuman form of violence. But there is another form of violence which the world has been much slower to recognize, and much more hesitant to take firm action against.” Referring to the violence being inflicted on the Earth by our materialistic civilization, Shri Advani said that only “when we reflect on the challenge of Climate Change that we begin to appreciate the enormous contemporary relevance of the Jain philosophy of ahimsa and jiva daya. We realize that Bhagwan Mahavir and the other Jain Tirthankars were great environmental conservationists. They taught us that we human beings are merely trustees of this planet. We need to re-learn their teachings in our times.” He further added that “eco-friendliness is not a mere fashionable phrase; it has to be interwoven into our development paradigm and also into our day-to-day living.”
In a way “all (of us) have to become adivasis or tribals who know how to exist in harmony with the earth,” he concluded. He promised that in the event of the BJP and the NDA forming the next government in New Delhi, appropriate steps to deal with both forms of violence—Terrorism and Climate Change—would be given the top priority.