CHARLES KONG SOO

GML head of New Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Steve Dip­nar­ine says Naya Jy­oti or new light il­lu­mi­nat­ed the hearts of pri­vate and cor­po­rate cit­i­zens who came to­geth­er re­new­ing peo­ple's faith in hu­man­i­ty by pro­vid­ing re­lief to those who were af­fect­ed by last week's flood­ing.

He was speak­ing at the Guardian Me­dia Group's first New Light Fes­ti­val Naya Jy­oti Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion, at the C3 Cen­tre, Ste Madeleine, on Oc­to­ber 25.

Dip­nar­ine said, “At this time of year when Hin­dus are prepar­ing for the holy cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali, it is won­der­ful to see greater in­ter­est in this fes­ti­val, as these types of events are im­por­tant facets of our mul­ti­cul­tur­al and mul­ti-re­li­gious so­ci­ety.

“It is a time when fam­i­lies, friends, neigh­bours from dif­fer­ent re­li­gious and cul­tur­al back­grounds come to­geth­er in fel­low­ship and cel­e­bra­tion.

“But it is al­so a time for re­flec­tion, prayer, and be­ing char­i­ta­ble and do­ing what you can to help those in need.

“It is tru­ly heart-warm­ing to have wit­nessed the out­pour­ing of love and sup­port from all sec­tors of so­ci­ety in the last few try­ing days.”

He said it was a demon­stra­tion of uni­ty, broth­er­hood, and pa­tri­o­tism.

Dip­nar­ine said he was very hap­py to join with Guardian Me­dia Ltd and the par­ent com­pa­ny, the ANSA McAL group in their first Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions and to al­so thank them for their ef­forts in as­sist­ing those af­fect­ed by the flood­ing.

Ad­dress­ing GML's Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Nicholas Sab­ga, he said his grand­fa­ther, for­mer chair­man of the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies, An­tho­ny Nor­man Sab­ga would be very proud of what the group was do­ing to as­sist the flood re­lief.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who was the chief guest, con­grat­u­lat­ed GML for not on­ly host­ing the cel­e­bra­tion but its cov­er­age of the re­cent floods and on­go­ing re­lief ef­forts.

Guardian Me­dia launched its Flood of Re­lief Cam­paign last Sun­day, a live blog ded­i­cat­ed plat­form pro­vid­ing health tips, cash do­na­tions through Guardian Need­i­est Cas­es Fund, and a col­lec­tion dri­ve, while ANSA McAL do­nat­ed $1 mil­lion in goods.

Naya Jy­oti is a four-day im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in­to tra­di­tion­al Hin­du and In­di­an cul­ture with a vista in­to new age el­e­ments.

Tonight's theme is Fam­i­ly and Chil­dren.