New Delhi, 25 January: Padma Awards have been announced on the occasion of Republic Day. The Padma Shri awards also include two Brazilian women, Gloria Areria and Lia Diskin. Gloria Areria is a Sanskrit and Vedanta scholar while Leah Diskin is a scholar of Gandhian ideas. This time the President of Brazil is the chief guest of the Republic Day celebrations of India.
Gloria Areria is doing pioneering work in Sanskrit and Vedanta. She has dedicated herself to teaching and publicity. She is teaching Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit in the traditional way in Portuguese. She lectures regularly on spirituality, enlightenment and mainly on the teachings of the Vedas. She has translated many Sanskrit texts into Portuguese, including the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads etc. Areria started her studies in January 1974 at the Arsh Sandipani Hospital in Mumbai. During her stay in India, Areria also studied and travelled to ashrams in Uttarkashi and Rishikesh.
At the same time, Dr. Lia Diskin is an eminent Brazilian Gandhian scholar actively involved in promoting Gandhian values ββof peace and non-violence for the last four decades. Despite being of Argentine origin, she has been in Brazil for 30 years. Dr. Liya is an admirer of the people and culture of India. Dr. Lia is invited to various universities in Brazil for her guidance. She has written several books on education, peace, morality and culture. One of her books ‘Paz, Como Se Faz?β (Peace, How to Establish?), it is taught in schools in six Brazilian states. She has translated Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography An Autobiography – My Experiments with Truth.
