NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker OM Birla has constituted Parliamentary Friendship Groups with over 60 countries, in a move to boost “India’s inter- parliamentary engagement with the world”, according to the Lok Sabha secretariat’s announcement on Monday.“In a significant step to widen India’s inter- parliamentary engagement with the world, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has constituted Parliamentary Friendship Groups with more than 60 countries,” said the secretariat, as quoted by ANI.Talking about its signifiance, it added, “The move reflects a conscious effort by the Indian Parliament to deepen dialogue and exchanges with legislatures across continents and to complement traditional diplomacy with sustained parliamentary interaction.”
Who’ll lead the groups?
Various politicians across party lines will be involed in leading the groups. The group leaders include:
- Ravi Shankar Prasad
Shashi Tharoor - Akhilesh Yadav
- M. Thambidurai
- P. Chidambaram
- Ram Gopal Yadav
- T.R. Baalu
- Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar
- Gaurav Gogoi
- Kanimozhi Karunanidhi
- Manish Tiwari
- Derek O’Brien
- Abhishek Banerjee
- Asaduddin Owaisi
- K. C. Venugopal
- Rajiv Pratap Rudy
- Supriya Sule
- Sanjay Singh
- Baijayant Panda
- Nishikant Dubey
- Anurag Singh Thakur
- Bhartruhari Mahtab
- D. Purandeswari
- Sanjay Kumar Jha
- Hema Malini
- Biplab Kumar Deb
- Sudhanshu Trivedi
- Jagdambika Pal
- Sasmit Patra
- Aparajita Sarangi
- Shrikant Eknath Shinde
- P. V. Midhun Reddy
- Praful Patel
Which countries are covered?
According to the secretariat, some of the countries the Parliamentary Friendship Groups have been constituted with are:
- Sri Lanka
- Germany
- New Zealand
- Switzerland
- South Africa
- Bhutan
- Saudi Arabia
- Israel
- Maldives
- United States
- Russia
- European Parliament
- South Korea
- Nepal
- United Kingdom
- France
- Japan
- Italy
- Oman
- Australia
- Greece
- Singapore
- Brazil
- Vietnam
- Mexico
- Iran
- United Arab Emirates
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