It was in the middle of 2014 that Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations called me to seek support for Israel’s initiative to have the United Nations include Yom Kippur in the list of UN annual holidays. Agreeing with his idea, I asked if he would like to support our initiative to include important Indian festivals like Diwali, Gur Purab and Buddha Jayanti (which is also called Vesak in the UN) as part of this list.
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As our two delegations began to sound out other delegations in the UN General Assembly, it became clear that while nobody was opposed to this idea, there was resistance from countries,which had already got their major festivals included in the UN holiday list, to accomodate any more such days. In the process we discovered that Russia was interested in including Orthodox Christmas in the list. Countries which mark Buddha Purnima joined us.
Our efforts were opposed by countries which felt that more non-working days in the UN would adversely impact on the functioning of the organization, and dilute budgeted activities.
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Since the negotiations were being conducted in the Fifth Committee which deals with budgetary issues, this was a major hurdle. Our negotiations became part of the annual UN budget negotiations, and through this dynamic, we succeeded. On 29 December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted this decision through Resolution . History had been made!
(The author is the former envoy to the UN)