Unanimously adopting the Delhi Declaration as the outcome of the two-day ‘Dialogue Among Civilisations’ co-hosted by the Union HRD Ministry with UNESCO, participating countries agreed today that measures have to be taken to protect educational institutions from teachings that promote extremism, intolerance and violence.Releasing the Declaration after the concluding session, Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi said: ‘‘The response to the initiative has been overwhelming. In that, it was accepted by all that education and availability of science and technology were crucial for eradication of ignorance and prejudices about ‘other’ customs.’’ He did not highlight how the countries, especially India, would go about implementing this clause whereby educational institutions have to be protected from fundamentalist teaching modules.Almost taking a cue from the Prime Minister’s speech at the inaugural session, the participants also agreed to initiate internal dialogue to resolve conflicts from within.After the embarrassing dig received from Pakistan in yesterday’s session on Kashmir and communal politics, it scored a brownie point by getting all the 70 participating countries to endorse India’s moral high-ground on acts of terrorism. The Declaration, thus, reaffirmed that ‘‘all acts of terrorism represent an attack against humanity as the killing of innocent civilians in order to spread terror is despicable to the values of all civilisations’’.
