The President further said that the war always destroys the truth and annihilate mankind, the war always search for blood and the war not only destroys the physical resources of a country, but damages all moral values including social justice and discipline of the society.

He made these remarks participating as the Chief Guest in the State Literary Awards 2015, held at the Nelum Pokuna (Lotus Pond), yesterday (20).

The President pointed out that writers, artistes and literates can play a pivotal role in building mutual understanding among all communities in a background where the government is making sincere efforts to build national reconciliation in the country after ending a 30 year long war and the President invited them to join with the government for this task.

President Sirisena said that the deep sorrow of the people are expressed to the society through the creations of the writers and the writers and artistes uplift human feelings like motherhood, fatherhood and love for children in our society, he added.

The President presented awards for the best novels published in Sinhala, Tamil and English mediums and once in a life time awards for their immense contribution to the literature were awarded to Prof. J. B. Disanayake, Dr. Mulimani and Capt. Elmo Jayawardena.

Sena Thoradeniya received the award for his novel ” Bandara Maru Un” as the best Sinhala novel of the year (2015) and N. P. Arulanandam received the award for his novel “Entha Vannathugul” and A. R Jayathilaka received the award for his novel “Knight of Olympus” respectively for best Tamil and English novels of the year.