National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Tuesday constituted the 36 standing committees of the lower house comprising MNAs from various parties as well as independent lawmakers.

According to a notification issued by the National Secretariat, a 20-member Standing Committee on Defence has been formed, which includes Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)'s Tahir Sadiq, Grand Democratic Alliance's (GDA) Ghous Bux Mahar and PML-N's Muhammad Barjees Tahir.

In all, eight members of the committee are from the PTI, five are from the PML-N, three belong to the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), while one each represents the GDA, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and the Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal Pakistan (MMAP).

In the 20-member Standing Committee on Interior, nine members are from the PTI, five are from the PML-N, and three belong to PPPP. These include PTI's Nafeesa Inayatullah Khan Khattak, Balochistan National Party's (BNP) Muhammad Akhtar Mengal, PML-N's Marriyum Aurangzeb, and PPPP's Abdul Qadir Patel.

The 20-member Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, includes 10 members from the PTI, five from the PML-N, and two from the PPPP.

Prominent names include PTI's Syed Fakhar Imam, Makhdoom Zain Hussain Qureshi and Maleeka Ali Bokhari, PML-N's Zahra Wadood Fatemi and Maiza Hameed, PPPP's Hina Rabbani Khar, and independent lawmaker Mohsin Dawar.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has been named in the Standing Committee for Human Rights. His father Asif Ali Zardari, however, has not been named in any committee.

PML-N stalwart Khwaja Muhammad Asif will serve as a member in the Standing Committee for Water Resources but former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was unable to make any list.

The chairpersons for each committee have not yet been appointed. They will be elected from among the members at the first meeting called by the committees.