South Asian Speakers' Summit to begin from Feb 18

The two-day South Asian Speakers' Summit, the invitation to which was declined by Pakistan, will begin from February 18 in Indore.
Gender equality and Climate Change are the subjects likely to dominate the deliberations at the summit, which is jointly organised by the Indian Parliament and Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
The main agenda of the summit is to discuss about achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The summit will be inaugurated by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. Besides her, presiding officers of Parliament from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka will also participate in the summit.
"The Indore Summit provides an international platform to the parliamentarians of the South Asian region to collectively discuss the developmental concerns of the area," Lok Sabha Secretariat said in a statement.

Earlier in January 2016, speakers of Parliament from South Asia had met for the first time in Dhaka, Bangladesh and discussed ways and concrete action for the Parliaments of the region to help implement the SDGs.

The Dhaka Declaration highlighted the importance of strong Parliamentary action on the SDGs and established the South Asian Speakers' Forum on Achieving the SDGs.
It was decided that the forum should meet once a year to discuss progress and implementation of the SDGs. The present summit in Indore is being held following the declaration taken at Dhaka.
Meanwhile, India had invited Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, Sardar Auaz Sadiq, for the regional summit but the invitation was declined.

Besides Pakistan, Myanmar which is also among the member countries, had also turned down the invitation.