Four diplomats and a US politician have been honoured at the UN with the Diwali Foundation’s Power of One award recognising their contributions to promoting international relations.

The head of the European Union Delegation to the UN, Olof Skoog, described the unique annual awards at the UN as the “Oscars of Diplomacy” while introducing to the ceremony on Monday.

General Assembly President Csaba Korosi said that “the essence of Diwali transcends cultures and inspires all of us to strive for a better world” and “that is what today’s awardees have helped to do – showing the way through diplomacy.

The awardees were Eliot Engel, the former chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, former Bulgaria Interim Defence Minister Georgi Velikov Panayatov, former Georgia Permanent Representatives Kaha Imnadze, Keisha McGuire of Grenada and Jean Claude do Rego of Benin.

The Diwali Foundation, which grew out of efforts to get the US Postal System to issue a stamp honouring the festival of Diwali, makes the award, Power of One, recognising how one person can become the agent of change.

The ceremony was sponsored by 60 countries this year, with Russia as a notable absentee.

India’s Permanent Representative Ruchira Kamboj said that Diwali is the “celebration of the eternal values that are so relevant to what we do here at the United Nations – goodness, caring and compassion”

“We are a world in crises, a world in need of transformation”, Korosi said. “I am sure that we too possess the power to create the light and spread it across the world”.

(SAM)