Birla Constitutes “Parliamentary Friendship Groups” to Strengthen Legislative Relations with 64 Countries
NEW DELHI, Feb 23: In a major step to deepen India’s parliamentary engagement across the world, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has constituted ‘Parliamentary Friendship Groups’, aimed at strengthening inter‑parliamentary cooperation and legislative dialogue, with 64 countries.
A wide spectrum of political leaders are a part of the groups. Senior political leaders, including Ravi Shankar Prasad, 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, Akhilesh Yadav, K.C. Venugopal, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Supriya Sule, Sanjay Singh, Baijayant Panda, Shashi Tharoor, Nishikant Dubey, Anurag Singh Thakur, Bhartruhari Mahtab, D. Purandeswari, Hema Malini, Biplab Kumar Deb, and others will lead these groups.
The first phase involves engagements with countries, including Sri Lanka, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, South Africa, Bhutan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Maldives, the U.S., Russia, members of the European Parliament, South Korea, Nepal, the U.K., France, Japan, Italy, Australia, Greece, Singapore, Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico, Iran, and the UAE. These groups are expected to facilitate regular dialogue, exchange of legislative practices, and cooperation on trade, technology, culture, and shared global challenges.
The initiative seeks to build on the Centre’s post-Operation Sindoor outreach, which saw multi‑party delegations representing India abroad in a unified manner on issues of national interest.
(Manas Dasgupta)
