Published on December 02, 2005

The speech was given on November 11 at the Indira Candhi Award Presentation 2005

I feel very honored and privileged to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament today. I did not get the opportunity to meet Mrs. Indira Gandhi in person but I have read, during my teens, books on her biography and also the book “the Discovery of India”, the collection of letters that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to her. This book which was originally meant to be personal, has become universal. When we read this book, not only that we can explore the intellectual history of India, but it also portrays the way the distinguished father imparted his profound knowledge, his love for his country and his belief in democracy to his distinguished daughter. As a reader, I have the chance of being inspired by it.

We all hope that we could bring peace to this world and no one would use deadly weapons to destroy others. Now there are, in many parts of the world, turmoil and disorder. I hope that we can join hands in solving these problems, how? I do not know. We also wish that individuals and communities will prosper and have the good opportunity to develop their well being. It can be any form of political development, economic development or social development.

Since I was a little child, the talk in my family and the whole household centered on development. My parents have traveled throughout the country to do development work, especially rural development. All the facets of development are interrelated. I had got a chance to accompany them to most of these areas. My father has always tried to improve the agricultural land mainly by mean of small and medium sizes irrigation projects. He uses his map as a tool to decide what should be done with addition from the interview with local people and officials. My mother has helped to promote health, education and the income from traditional art and crafts.

My parents also told me that development worker had to be strong enough to walk up the mountain to encourage the upland farmers!

At present, I myself concentrate on education development. It comprises of not only the promotion of teaching, learning and school building, but also working on many health issues, and the development of agriculture for the farmers’ own consumption for food safety and partly in a commercial scale. In my opinion, we should make sure our development work is a sustainable one. Our development work should be balanced, that is to say, we should bear in mind that we should protect our natural resources for our posterities.

The development workers should be ready to work with other people, which can be local people or others such as international organizations, governments, corporate and NGOs. It is very important to have enough information in order to work effectively.

Development work is difficult and takes a long time to accomplish, so development workers should be patient, should have a firm belief in dharma or virtue, they should also be honest and truthful so that others could have faith in them.

Once again I would like to express the feeling of thanks for the honor bestowed upon me. Moreover in receiving this prize I have the opportunity to come to India again to meet H.E. the President once again in a year. I have a great admiration for India as the origin of one of the greatest civilization that have a profound effect on Thailand and the other countries of Southeast Asia. Modern development of India particularly in science and technology is also remarkable so I think we have a lot to learn from India. The prize I get today serves as an encouragement for me to continue my effort in development in order to create the well-being of the Thai people, Asian people and the people around the world which may bring peace and prosperity to the world.

Thank you very much.

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