Vice Chancellor Dr. Nagaraj Neerchal was invited as a keynote speaker at the ICEMS 2020 conference at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, during the second week of January 2020. Dr. Neerchal made use of this visit to the island country to introduce and promote Indian Knowledge Systems and CVV to university students, faculties and the general public.
Vice-Chancellor Neerchal had met Swamins and Brahmacharins from Chinmaya Mission Sri Lanka (CMSL) on 7th November 2019 to explore the possibilities to conduct CVV outreach sessions in their respective centres and areas.
On 13th November 2019, Swami Gunatitananda happened to visit Sri Santosh Varma, Counsellor (Consular) of the Indian High Commission in Colombo during which the matter of CVV came up. IHC expressed their willingness to assist this cause and introduced Swamiji to Dr. Rewant Vikram Singh, Director of Indian Cultural Centre (ICC).
Pleased and impressed with CVV, IKS, Dr. Neerchal and the objective of his visit to SL, Dr. Singh took it up to reach out to most of the State Universities of Sri Lanka.
ICC suggested that the focus of presentations should be examples from the ancient knowledge which provides solutions to the modern world, such as Vedic Mathematics, personality development, career planning and so on. Accordingly, Dr. Nagaraj decided to speak on ‘Old Roots New Sprouts: Building a Successful Career by blending the Ancient with the Modern’. Dr. Rewant was very receptive to the idea and provided full support to reach out to maximum people.
Thus from 11th to 14th January, Dr. Neerchal addressed several audiences at various venues. In addition to creating awareness of CVV, the visit opened up possibilities to promote CVV through follow up activities which would be mutually beneficial to CVV as well as the identified audience.
8th to 10th January: Keynote address at the ICEMS 2020 at University of Peradeniya. Initial discussion took place to explore the possibilities of a student exchange programme between the University of Peradeniya and CVV.
11th January: Addressed the youth and general public at the Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo in two separate sessions. Online links of CVV and the weekly webinar was circulated to the participants with thank you emails. Dr. Rewant expressed interest in promoting Indian Knowledge Systems at ICC starting with CVV’s ‘Weekly Webinar’, as well as organising sessions promoting Vedic Mathematics. It was decided to organise a program at Chinmaya International Foundation along with CVV for the Vice-Chancellors of all the State Universities of Sri Lanka.
12th January: A bilingual session in Tamil and English for the members of CM at Chinmaya Dakshinakailash, Trincomalee.
13th January: Addressed the faculty and undergraduates at Batticaloa Campus of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. The Vice-Chancellor of the Eastern University attended the session. On the same day addressed the faculty and staff at Trincomalee Campus of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka.
The University requested Brni. Mahima Chaitanya to conduct sessions on mindfulness for students, faculty and staff. They requested Dr. Nagaraj to visit their University and sought his assistance in reviewing their new curriculum. Interest was expressed in sending their faculty to CIF and CVV for a short programme to study IKS.
14th January: Addressed the faculty, staff and foreign students at the University of Colombo. The Director of Centre for Contemporary Indian Studies, at the University of Colombo, also attended the session.
The University expressed interest in discussing the possibility of combining IKS and CKS in their curriculum, in having CVV faculty visit the University to address their students as well as in screening CVV’s ‘Weekly Webinar’.