WASHINGTON (TIP): Two top American Senators have introduced a resolution in the US Senate recognizing the religious and historical significance of Diwali festival. Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn, co-chairs of the US Senate’s bipartisan India Caucus, have introduced the resolution in observance of the festival of lights, expressing deepest respect for Indian Americans and South Asian Americans, as well as fellow countrymen and diaspora throughout the world on this significant occasion. “As co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, I am pleased to sponsor a resolution celebrating this important holiday for the Indian people and Indian-Americans,” Warner said. “India is the world’s largest democracy, which makes our countries and our people natural partners. It’s a relationship based on shared values, and its one I’d like to continue to grow,” he said. “Diwali’s message of tolerance, compassion, and the victory of good over evil resonates with the American spirit,” Cornyn said. “As Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and others come together to celebrate this festival of lights, let us all be reminded, as Americans, of one of our most cherished freedoms: the freedom of religion,” he said in a statement. Diwali is a festival of lights that marks the beginning of the Hindu new year, during which celebrants light small oil lamps, place the lamps around the home, and pray for health, knowledge, peace, wealth and prosperity, the resolution notes. The lights symbolise the light of knowledge within the individual that overwhelms the darkness of ignorance, empowering each celebrant to do good deeds and show compassion to others, it said. Diwali falls on the last day of the last month in the lunar calendar and is celebrated as a day of thanksgiving for the homecoming of the Lord Rama and worship of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles and bestower of blessings, at the beginning of the new year for many Hindus, it added.