PM harps on terrorism at Shantiniketan

shantiniketan: terrorism took the center stage during the convocation address of prime minister atal behari vajpayee on saturday at the viswa bharati university in santiniketan. emphasising the need to foster tagore's ideals of peace and education, prime minister vajpayee said that before the terrorists hands are trained to kill, their minds are trained to hate.the prime minister did not lose the opportunity of taking a barb at india's neighbour. "it is shocking that promoters of terrorism in our neighbourhood have turned even some schools meant for religious education into factories of terror," the prime minister said. "those regimes that seek to promote their untenable political goals by sponsoring terror are doomed in the face of the collective will of the international community," the prime minister said, in a direct reference to thursday's attack on parliament, hinting that major world powers had rallied behind india on the terrorism question. the prime minister also hinted that the counter offensive against terrorism will be much wider after december 13 incident. terrorism has many dimensions, just as strategy to counter it will have to be implemented across many fronts, he said. vajpayee exhorted everyone to adopt tagore's ideals to counter the recent hate campaign. "tagore affirmed the innate relationship between shiksha and shanty. which is why, he located viswa bharati in santiniketan. the prime minister, who is also the acharya of viswa bharati conferred desikottama, the university's highest honour, to noted statistician c. radhakrishna rao and sarod maestro ustad amjad ali khan. having recived the honour, a visibly moved khan announced that he will soon return to santiniketan to hold a workshop in february when he will also perform. while artists bhupen khakkar and ritendra mozumdar were conferred gagan-abani puraskar, computer scientist dwijesh dutta mazumdar and space commission chairman k kasturirangan were conferred rathindra puraskar by the university. the honours were conferred for academic years 1999 and 2000. earlier, the prime minister arrived in the university town in a helicopter from kolkata. he was accompanied by trinamul supremo mamata banerjee and bjp leader satyabrata mukherjee.