News
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
SAARC speakers and parliamentarians meetingMeira hands over presidentship to Fehmida
ISLAMABAD: In the General Assembly Meeting of the sixth Conference of the Association of SAARC speakers and parliamentarians in Islamabad on November 5, Meira Kumar, honourable speaker, Lok Sabha handed over the presidentship to Dr Fehmida Mirza, speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan as per Article 5(d) of the Charter of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians. Thereafter, the items in the Agenda proposed by the speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan were unanimously approved by the General Assembly. The General Assembly also accepted the proposal of Parliament of Maldives to host the next Conference of the Association in 2013.
In the first session, Meira Kumar gave a lead speech on “Meaningful Participatory Democracy in South Asia - Parliament’s Affirmative Actions”. Meira Kumar said that the SAARC region is facing a host of developmental challenges ranging from poverty and deprivations to imbalances in development. As a region with about 22 percent of the world’s population, the association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians has a collective task of finding solutions to these problems. It is in this context that the parliaments of the SAARC nations have an important role to play. Affirmative action is imperative to ensure a level playing field for the disadvantaged sections to increase and promote their participation in the governing processes. As a policy, affirmative action is intended to provide increased opportunities for under-represented and disadvantaged groups that have been traditionally left out of the loop of development. She further said, “Our parliaments can take a lead in truly fostering economic and social advancement of the people by devolving constitutional power to the common man and actively involving marginalized sections of the society in decision-making process.”
In the second and third sessions, Paramjit Kaur Gulshan, MP Lok Sabha and Narender Singh Tomar, MP Lok Sabha participated, respectively, through interventions on “Meaningful Participatory Democracy in South Asia - Parliament’s Affirmative Actions”. Narender Singh Tomar, MP spoke in Hindi. In the fourth session, Meenakshi Natrajan, MP Lok Sabha participated through intervention on “Targeting Food Security for the Region: Ensuring Parliament’s role in accomplishing MDGs”. In the evening at 1600hrs, the speaker called on Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari, chairman of the Senate of Pakistan. She was accompanied by Prof PJ Kurien, Hon’ble Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Sardar Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, MP, Narender Singh Tomar, MP, Paramjit Kaur Gulshan, MP, Dr Mehboob Beg, MP and Secretary General, Lok Sabha and the High Commissioner of India in Pakistan. pr
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk