PIOs conference will help open news vistas: Sushma Swaraj

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday said the conference of PIO Parliamentarians Conference will help in opening new vistas for regular dialogue and exchange of views.

She was speaking at the valedictory session of the first ever PIO Parliamentarians Conference here.

"I am confident that this historical conference will help open new vistas for regular dialogues and exchange of visits and views of PIO parliamentarians," she said, adding global Indians had become India's friends currently because of the several successful initiatives launched by the government to connect with Indian diaspora.

"In times of crisis in abroad, the Indian government has launched several rescue missions too."

She said that the current government has one mission to remake India into a great nation and the "mission in which every Indian and equally every overseas Indian arrive at equal fate".

"The government of India under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been specially proactive in making bonds with Indian dispora."

A total of 143 PIO lawmakers from 24 countries attended in the first of its kind initiative taken by the government.

The PIO Parliamentarian forum was planned last year during a conversation with the Prime Minister to connect the lawmakers of Indian origin with their ancestral land, the Minister said.

--IANS

rak/vd