Co-director of Gandhi Peace Foundation to speak at URI’s Honors Colloqium KINGSTON, R.I. — September 11, 2000 — Rajiv Vora, a respected activist, educator, author, and co-director of the Gandhi Peace Foundation based in New Delhi, will speak on “Living the Gandhian Legacy” as part of the University of Rhode Island’s fall honors colloquium series, “Nonviolence: Legacies of the Past, Bridges to the Future.” He will explore legacies of the past, current realities, and possible Gandhian contributions globally for a more just and peaceful 21st century. Vora will speak in the Barry Marks Auditorium, Room 271 of the Chafee Social Science Center on URI’s Kingston Campus, September 19 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Growing up, Vora’s well-to-do family gave most of its wealth to the freedom movement led by Mohatma Gandhi. Vora received his primary and secondary education in Gandhian residential rural schools, which emphasized gardening, weaving, and other manual training self-sufficiency and the dignity of self and others. He earned an undergraduate university degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in sociology. Although awarded a Peace Research Fellowship to pursue a doctoral program, he left his studies in the mid-1970s to join a mass satyagraha movement led by Jai Prakash Narayan, a Gandhian leader. He became a prominent student leader in the nonviolent struggle that brought down the authoritarian government in the Indian State of Bihar. In 1977, he joined the Gandhi Peace Foundation as a scholar-activist, and became involved with grass-roots social change, adult education and international peace movements. As a commentator, columnist, and writer for the Economic Times and a number of other leading dailies and scholarly journals, Vora is known for his unorthodox views. In addition to being a leading interpreter of Gandhina thought, he is engaged in experimental educational programs in India. He and his wife, Dr. Niru Vora, who received her masters degree in political science from URI, work with an informal group of Indian intelligentsia in seeking a morally and culturally meaningful life in contemporary India. An avid environmentalist, Vora has been recognized internationally for his leadership in halting the dumping of European farm-wastes in India. Among his current activities, he serves as consultant to the Government of India’s National Council of Rural Institutes, Ministry of Human Resource Development. Vora is also well known among musicians and musicologists as being a fine sitar player. URI’s Colloquium series runs Tuesday nights from 7:30 to 9 p.m. and is free and open to the public. For Information: Lynne Derbyshire, 401-874-4732, Arthur Stein, 401-874-4059, Jan Sawyer, 401-874-2116, Jennifer Smith, 401-874-2116