Fehmida Mirza elected chairperson of SAARC Council of Speakers

National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza has been elected as the chairperson of the SAARC Council of Speakers.
Meira Kumar proposed Mirza’s name for the chairmanship of the conference which was unanimously approved by all the members of the council. The outgoing chairperson Kumar congratulated Mirza on her election and thanked all the members for their cooperation during her chairmanship. She was of the view that under the leadership of Mirza, the SAARC Speaker’s Forum would flourish and enhance parliamentary cooperation between SAARC countries.
After assuming the Chair of the Council of Speakers, Mirza thanked her SAARC counterparts for reposing confidence in her. She paid her special gratitude to the outgoing chairperson Kumar for her efforts due to which the SAARC parliamentarian’s forum witnessed continued progress and which would be a guiding principle for her during her tenure as chairperson. Mirza on the occasion missed Nepal and Afghanistan who could not attend the conference due to the dissolution of National Assembly in Nepal and Afghanistan’s preoccupation with its domestic affairs. However, she wished them good luck and hoped they would participate in the next conferences. Abdullah Shahid of Maldives was elected as the vice chairman of the council. The meeting also decided to hold the next conference in Maldives in 2013.
Earlier, Kumar, Speaker Indian Lok Sabha chaired a meeting of the SAARC Council of Speakers in Parliament House. The Council of Speakers approved the agenda for the 6th SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians Conference. In a separate meeting headed by MNA Nafisa Shah, women parliamentarians from Bhutan, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan called to work collectively in SAARC region to adopt measures for strengthening democracy and social justice in SAARC region. The participants formed a SAARC Women Parliamentarians Committee for strengthening women parliamentarians’ network in South Asia with emphasis on the role and position of women of the SAARC countries. Shah said the meeting of women parliamentarians from the forum of the SAARC Speakers Conference was the first of its kind with significant objectives to share experiences of women parliamentarians in their respective parliaments and; to exchange and share their views on women parliamentarians’ role in strengthening democracy.