Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked for thorough preparations for the United Nations Day of Vesak Celebrations in May 2019 to ensure Vietnam’s prestige while chairing a conference on the organisation of the event in Hanoi on December 5.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chairs conference on the organisation of United Nations Day of Vesak Celebrations. (Source: VNA)

Underlining the importance of this international event, PM Phuc said that its success will help enhance Vietnam’s position and affirm the Vietnamese Party and State’s consistent policy of respecting and ensuring the right to freedom of religion and belief.

He urged the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha (VBS) Central Committee to map out a master plan on the organisation of the event, and make the best preparations in not only infrastructure but also the agenda.

Relevant localities were requested to coordinate closely with the VBS, while concerned ministries and agencies were required to work out specific plans, including those involved in communications.

The Ministry of Public Security should direct its units and local police forces to ensure absolute security and safety for the event, he stressed.

For Ha Nam province which hosts the celebrations, the Government leader asked the locality to set up an organising board which holds meetings regularly to ensure the process of building infrastructure.

The United Nations Day of Vesak Celebrations is scheduled to take place in the Ha Nam province from May 12-14 next year under the theme of “Buddhism’s approach to global leadership and sharing responsibility for a sustainable society”. It is expected to draw around 1,500 foreign delegates from over 90 nations and territories and 10,000 domestic delegates and Buddhist dignitaries and followers.

Along with the opening and closing sessions, the event will include five seminars focusing on Buddhism’s approach to harmonious family, health care and sustainable society, global education and morality; responsible consumption and sustainable development, and on the relationship between the fourth Industrial Revolution and Buddhist education.

This will be the third time Vietnam hosts the Vesak Celebrations, he said, adding that the previous events, organised in Hanoi (2008) and Ninh Binh province (2014), left lasting impressions on the attending international friends.

The first preparatory meeting was underway in Hanoi on October 11-12, with the attendance of more than 150 representatives from Cambodia, China, France, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the U.S.

In 1999, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in which it recognised the Day of Vesak, the Day of the Full Moon, to acknowledge the contributions that Buddhism, one of the oldest religions in the world, has made for over two and a half millennia and continues to make to the spirituality of humanity./.

VNF/VNA