Indian Institute of Finance hosted the 41st IIF Webinar series on “Essence of Life and Growth” by Prof Dr. J.D. Agarwal, Chairman & Distinguished Professor of Finance, Indian Institute of Finance and Editor-in Chief Finance India. The IIF Webinar was moderated by Prof. Aman Agarwal, Professor of Finance & Dean (IR) Indian Institute of Finance (www.iif.edu) and Executive Editor, Finance India (www.financeindia.org). The Webinar was attended by over 74 global participants from USA, South Africa, Singapore, Germany, Finland, Zambia, UAE, India and others.

Prof. J.D. Agarwal said that the essence and purpose of life is to perform karma, to have hope and happiness inside us. Performing karma, acquiring vidya (skill), earning wealth, having friends and being happy are the most important things to live a peaceful and satisfied life. Earning wealth is essential and important for everyone but it should not be the only motive in life feels Prof. Agarwal. Money, wealth and happiness is resultant of pursing work with dharma and doing once work or duty keeping nation first is in itself a dharma in addition to pursuing one’s own religion said Prof. Agarwal.

According to him, at the time of uncertainty, we just need to pursue our task properly. One should celebrate every moment of one’s life with the hope and positivity irrespective of sukh and dukh (good or bad time). One must invest in oneself for their growth, development and happy living; investment may be in terms of time and money said Prof. Agarwal. He punctuated his speech with sankskrit shlokas and quoting Lord Krishna from Bhagwat Gita.

In order to grow any organization there must be an opportunity to grow the human resources in the same organization. Happiness comes from satisfaction with what we have but greed for more which doesn’t match our capabilities causes unhappiness in our life; instead of measuring growth our priority should be to focus on development which is important to be happy in life emphasised Prof. Agarwal.

According to Prof. Agarwal, the success mantra for everyone is to work, work and work seriously, sincerely, consistently and honestly in the favor and interest of the nation and themselves. Sustainable growth in challenging times is important, we can take it as an opportunity for development, as we know the problems or necessity is the mother of any invention.

According to him, the government should create and facilitate an opportunity for work and employment which are important and essential for sustainable growth and to induce happy living in the citizens.

While addressing youth, Prof. Agarwal said that youth need to find out their ambition and objective of their life because the goal is the part of life and try to find out the way to achieve it by harnessing their energy, for that youth should read the autobiography of the people of the same field in which they are interested in, it would help them to be able to think in different way and to get the positive energy to do that work and apart from this they should always think to repay the debt of their motherland.

Replying to a question, Prof. Agarwal said that the children must be taught at the primary level in their mother tongue, from fourth standard, subjects like Sanskrit, being the mother of all languages of the world and Hindi should be introduced and from sixth standard any foreign language- English should become the part of the curriculum. Large number of Questions from amongst over 74 participants were asked by Mr. Asoke K. Laha (President & CEO, Interra IT USA); Dr. Namita Sahay (Amity University, INDIA), Mr. Pankaj (Professor, INDIA) and many others.

Indian Institute of Finance has initiated the interactive IIF Webinar Series on “Essence of Life and Growth” with the prime objective to bring forth positivity of life based on the life experiences one has gained over 3-4 decades of personal life experiences, professional life, the nation, the economy and the world at large, having seen different colours of life based on ups and downs one has witnessed.