By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : The youngest minister in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet, Agatha Sangma, another youthful minister Ajay Maken as well as Congress party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi are among participants of the 4th India-Yale Parliamentary Leadership Programme being held June 9-19.
Global political-economic affairs and the challenges of leadership are the focus of the leadership programme at the New Haven, Connecticut, based Ivy League institution.
The fourth edition of the Yale University programme, starting with a seven-day leadership programme with Yale faculty, will be complemented by a three-day programme of meetings, discussions, and interactions with US politicians, policy analysts and senior US government officials in New York and Washington, according to a Yale release.
Nearly 50 members of the Indian parliament have participated in the programme since its launch in 2007, in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the India-US Forum of Parliamentarians.
Among the 2,010 participants are Singhvi, the national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress party; Ajay Maken, 46, minister of state for home affairs; and Agatha Sangma, 29, minister of state for rural development, the youngest minister in the council of ministers.
Underscoring the programme’s emphasis on fostering discussion and dialogue across party lines, the 2,010 participants are drawn from seven different political parties.
“The India-Yale Parliamentary Leadership Programme underscores Yale’s longstanding commitment to educating our students for service and leadership,” said Yale President Richard C. Levin.
“We have now gone a step further to include emerging and mid-career leaders. The programme will provide the parliamentarians with opportunities to critically think about the challenges of leadership and to explore freely, away from the legislative arena, the issues facing India.”
The “programme encourages greater understanding of public leadership, accountability, transparency and parliamentary oversight amongst the parliamentarians,” said FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra.
“It is designed to provide the parliamentarians capacity building and skill development and greater engagement in public policy discussions.”
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the Chairman of the India-US Forum of Parliamentarians, said the “programme is pioneering in the amazing diversity of topics explored, in the outstanding, cutting edge quality of the world- renowned lecturers and in the truly bipartisan nature of the multiparty delegation.”
“Most important, and perhaps most unquantifiable but clearly tangible, is the remarkable bonding between the members of the delegation over the course of the programme – something not found easily even after years in Parliament!”