March 26, 2007	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, March 25: Some of the leading politicians from India and other countries of the region will be amongst the participants of the third Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) conference which commences here on Monday.

A total of 125 delegates, secretaries, staff and accompanying persons will be participating in the conference out of which 94 are from abroad. Majority of the foreign delegates (72) are from India.

The delegates from India will include deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha and speakers of 15 state assemblies of India including veteran Congress leader Rehan Khan, speaker of the West Bengal Assembly Hashim Abdul Halim and speaker of Bihar Assembly Udai Narain Chaudhry.

The two-day conference being hosted by the Senate of Pakistan will be attended by parliamentary delegates from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives. Speakers of Sri Lanka, deputy speaker of Maldives are also participating in the event.

CPA consists of national, provincial, state and territorial parliaments of the Commonwealth countries and its mission is to promote knowledge and understanding about parliamentary democracy.

The theme of the third conference is ‘knowledge sharing and networking among regional parliaments’. The theme will be discussed in two plenary sessions. The first session will discuss the role of parliaments in overseeing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, with particular reference to poverty alleviation.

The second plenary session will discuss the contribution of information and communication technologies to good governance and the improvement of parliamentary democracy in particular the role of web telecasting.

CPA has nine regions including Asia and India. India used to be part of Asian region but in 2004 it became a separate region. However, the two regions are holding joint annual conferences since bifurcation. The first and second joint conferences were held in India, the first in Hyderabad and the second in New Delhi. Chairman Senate Mohammadmian Soomro, also the chairman of CPA’s executive committee (Asian region), will be the chief guest at the inaugural session.