Chennai: The 11th All-India Vedic competition conducted by Om Charitable Trust, saw over 800 students from across the country, take part in the preliminary round and around 250 in the finals held at Sri Krishnaswamy Kalyana Mandapam and Sri Kanthimathi Kalyana Mandapam between 19 and 21 July.
A press release said, on 19 July, Public Health Centre, West Mambalam, medical director and president, Dr MK Srinivasan, presided over the function and highlighted the importance of Vedas in banishing the superstitions prevalent in the society.
The three-day event saw padha pooja being offered to Vedic scholars and performing of Samskritananda, an educative programme on Sanskrit by Vyoma Linguistic Lab Foundation. Also, a music programme ‘Vedam Geetam Nadam’ by veena vidwan Sambasivan, Chinmaya Sisters and chanting of rudram was performed.
Valedictory function was held 21 July under the aegis of Lakshmi Narayanan, emeritus vice chairman of Cognizant who presided over and distributed prizes to the winning students and patashalas. The chief examiner of the event, Dr R Krishnamurthy Sastrigal spoke about the impact of technology on daily life and suggested to use the same for Vedic education.
Om Charitable Trust founded under the guidance of Dr Balaji Srinivasan and Narayanan, a chartered accountant, has been conducting inter-patashala Vedic competition to students across the country in Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvana Vedas and all its branches.
Sundaram Finance, managing director, Srinivasa Raghavan and AS Kumar, chartered accountant, are other trustees.
The Trust also offers a monthly stipend to students pursuing studies in Vedas and at present, 18 of them are benefitted under the scheme. Donations to the trust are exempted from Income Tax and cheques may be drawn in favour of ‘Om Charitable Trust’.
To know more about trust activities visit www.omcharitabletrust.com.