His Holiness to address at annual Forum 2000 in Prague

By Lobsang Tenchoe

DHARAMSALA, August 31: His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give a public talk on secular ethics at the annual Forum 2000 in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Prague to attend the 20th anniversary of the annual Forum 2000 to be held over Oct 16-19 and deliver a public talk on secular ethics at Lucerna Palace on Oct 19 at 1:00 pm (Czech local time).

The annual Forum 2000 was started by former Czech President Václav Havel, Japanese philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.

The first Forum 2000 was held in 1997 and focused on hope for the future, reports prague.tv, Aug 31.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who visited the country in 1990, was among the first foreign dignitaries to visit Czechoslovakia as it returned to a liberal democracy through the peaceful Velvet Revolution. However, Slovak national aspirations strengthened and on Jan 1, a1993, the country peacefully split into the independent Czech Republic and Slovakia, the report adds.

As a close friend of the late Czech President Havel, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has visited Prague more than 10 times. Their last meeting was in December 2011, just before the former president passed away.

Earlier, His Holiness gave a public talk on ‘Compassion and Respect in Today’s Society’ when he attended Forum 2000 in Prague in 2013.