The monks who do not want to sell the Ferrari

A 'Swami' and a 'Yogi' say venerate wealth and its creators, do not vilify them

Philosophy and finance met at the seventh World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) held at a Santacruz hotel on Friday. The annual WHEF conference, a platform for the community to network and foster business opportunity, is being held for the first time in India and will go on until Sunday.

WHEF founder Swami Vigyananand mixed ancient Hindu wisdom and philosophy first beginning with Ayodhya during his speech. "It [Ayodhya] is in the news today." He recalled the glory of Ayodhya and said that we "have always had a tradition of wealth creation. The creation of wealth and its creators need to be respected. Unfortunately, in today's times wealth is looked down upon. This needs to change. The community has been saddled with stereotypes like the Hindus are people who do tan tan tan tan, (he mimicked the tinkling of a bell) they are superstitious and backward. That is not true."

Waking up

Elaborating his belief of venerating the wealth creator, Swami said, "Industrialists must have a decent standard of living. Farmers should not be overburdened. The ideal tax levied should be 16 per cent. Today, the government has woken up to this wisdom and reduced the corporate tax, 'der aaye, durust aaye' (better late than never)." "The economy is like a lion, if you are not watchful, it will swallow you," he said.

A lion-like roar erupted as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came up on the podium and chants of Jai Shri Ram rang out as he took the mike. Adityanath, whose address was about Uttar Pradesh: Powering Economy of Naya Bharat, said there were great changes in the state. "The Kumbh Mela held earlier this year is an example. There were several images associated with the Kumbh showing it as a fertile ground for crime, a den of cheats, and as dirty. This, I would say tainted the festival. I brought together a team and told them that we have one year to get rid of these smears. This year, more than 24 crore people were at the Kumbh. There were no law and order problems, no accidents and no inconvenience. I used technology to facilitate much of this, proving that there can be a happy marriage between tradition and tech, they are not and should not be mutually exclusive."

Decline in crime

The CM claimed there has been very tough action, "on crime in UP. Earlier, a young man who went out in the world would be ashamed to say that he is from UP. That is changing now." He claimed many CMs were "afraid to go to Ayodhya because they were afraid to be called not secular. I have been there at least 10 times. Ayodhya will live up to its name, there will be no 'yudh' in the name of Ayodhya. We have two Expressways earlier, three more will come up in Ayodhya. The Defence Expo will be held for the first time in Lucknow in 2020," said the CM. "Working even more towards the ease of doing business, UP stands for Unlimited Potential," Adityanath finished.

24
No. of people (in crore) who were at the Kumbh this year

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