'India committed to work with intl community on dev agenda'

Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan today underlined India's commitment of working with the international community to craft a "comprehensive and equitable" development agenda with poverty eradication at its core.
"The agenda of the Assembly is unique for international community to redouble its commitment for ending poverty and hunger," said Mahajan, who is leading Indian Parliamentary Delegation to attend the 132nd Assembly of Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU).
"Sumitra Mahajan reiterated India's commitment to working with International community to craft an ambitious, comprehensive and equitable development agenda with poverty eradication at its core," an official statement said.
Mahajan was addressing the Assembly on the overall theme "Sustainable Development Goals: Turning words into action".

While alluding to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay's philosophy of integral humanism, she asked the international community to aim for more equitable growth while addressing environmental issues.
"India had been providing assistance to partner countries for their economic and social development," she said and expressed hope that developed countries would be more generous towards this cause.

Observing that development at the cost of culture was "not sustainable", she asked the international community to evolve indigenous ways of achieving sustainable goals.
She affirmed that the India Parliament was ready to play its role in the noble endeavour towards achieving sustainable development goals. She, however, expressed concern over the uneven achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) across different regions of the World.

Mahajan also thanked the Vietnam government for the gracious hospitality extended to the Indian Parliamentary Delegation and the member countries of IPU.
The Union is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and cooperation among people and for the firm establishment of representative democracy.
Yesterday, candidatures of Lok Sabha MP RK Singh on the Bureau of the First Standing Committee of IPU on Peace and International Security, and Nagendra Singh on the Bureau of the Second Standing Committee of IPU on Sustainable Development, Finance and Trade was proposed and both the MPs from the India Group of IPU got elected unanimously.