President of this inaugural session, My Lord Justice Banerjee, Mr. Justice of Seychelles, My Lord Justice Thomas, Senior Advocates and eminent Jurist Mr. Venugopal, other legal luminaries from different parts of the world, my learned brother, Mr. Raza, Mr.& Mrs. Gandhi, ladies and gentlemen.

For this conference we have the theme of global harmony, and a new world order through the medium of world republic, essential for the world community to survive, more than oxygen for life of a man. For historical reason it is not feasible to conceive the idea but long back India conceived the theme of world republic. One of the references is "Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam" of Hindu philosophy, 150 years before Baha’u’llah, founder of Baha’i faith, propagated one citizenship for the globe. However, the civilization could not realize the relevance of world republic, may be due to geographical reason, may be for want of proximity among the various continents of the world. But after second world war, which was an eye opener, there was a proximity and nearness and one of the first of the messages of second World War was that for international harmony there is no alternative except a world republic. While considering this aspect India took leave in joining the commonwealth countries despite dissension. India also joined the membership of U.N.O. No doubt, the U.N.O. has no state of its own but at least the UNO has provided a forum for deliberating over International issues. At that time Indian constitution was in the making. Indian constitution in its schedule 7 even included U.N.O. as one of the subjects of Article 51. This principle was originally numbered as article 40. It opens with the word that the state shall promote international peace, but during the debate it was realised that it is not unilaterally India alone which can promote international peace. Therefore, by an amendment they added that state shall endeavour to promote international understanding. "Endeavour" of clause (c) was not in the original draft. It was incorporated later on the Gandhian philosophy of collective settlement. Article 51 is considered to be a great achievement. An eminent parliamentarian, while debating on article 40, which is Article 51 today, has said that India will play a great role in forming the world government which he referred to as "Superstate’ and to that he commented that all the nations will surrender part of their sovereignty. With this forecast at the time of framing article 51 it is operating for more than 50 years now. But contrary to this we have begun to assert the national sovereignty. Third world countries which suffered under the foreign rule did not wish to surrender part of their sovereignty and with this background they are asserting more and more of their sovereignty as loyalty to their motherland, Arnold Toynbee has said that sovereignty nowadays is an outdated and dogmatic concept. The 1972 Stockholm conference has prosposed the concept of a global village. In 1986 UNO also emphasized interdependence of sovereignty for mutual interest. We have European union for economic unity, we have got other unions of countries. Today we are deliberating on this topic so that tomorrow it might be conveyed to the world that for survival and peace there is no alternative but to go for a world republic and hope this deliberation will definitely give a new dimension to our concern for all time to come .

Thank you.

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