Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar is in London for a week-long visit to primarily attend the 57th Commonwealth parliamentary conference. Ms Kumar is accompanied by Lok Sabha MPs Killi Kruparani, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Arjun Charan Sethi and Rajya Sabha members Mukut Mithi and Balbir Punj. The Speaker’s visit comes in the last week of current high commissioner Nalin Surie’s term. Mr Surie, who will retire at the end of July, is leaving London next week. The government of India has not announced the name of his replacement as yet.
Mr Surie, who turned 60 on Sunday, started his London stint in September 2009. London has seen three high commissioners from India during Sir Richard’s single term as the high commissioner in New Delhi. Mr Kamalesh Sharma, the current secretary-general of the Commonwealth, was appointed high commissioner in 2004. He left his post on his Commonwealth appointment. He was succeeded by Mr Shiv Shankar Mukherjee in 2008, who stayed in London for just over a year.
The Nehru Centre, the cultural wing of the high commission in London, is also without a director after the last director, Monika Mohta, moved to Warsaw as the new Indian ambassador.
The conference, which has the theme of “Reinforcing Democracy” this year, comes as the House of Commons is raising profile of its work with the two high-profile investigations into the ongoing phone-hacking scandal by two powerful select committees.
Ms Kumar is due to deliver the lead speech in one of eight workshops at the Commonwealth conference. Her speech will open the workshop on “Technological Threats to International, National and Personal Security.” This is the Lok Sabha Speaker’s second trip to London this year. In January, she had attended the conference of speakers and presiding officers of Commonwealth countries in the Isle of Man. Ms Kumar attended the meeting of the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which marks its centenary in 2011, on Saturday and Sunday.