Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to elaborate on AI initiatives taken in Indian Parliament at BRICS Summit in Brazil
He embarked on a visit to Brazil on June 1 to participate in the 11th BRICS Parliamentary Forum, starting from June 3 to 5 at Brasilia. He is leading the Indian parliamentary delegation.
The Forum will be attended by presiding officers of parliaments of BRICS members and invited nations and deliberating upon this year's theme 'The Role of BRICS Parliaments in Building a more inclusive and sustainable, Global Governance'.
According to an official statement, the LS speaker will address the Forum on 'Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation for Responsible and Inclusive Artificial Intelligence' and 'BRICS Parliaments United for the Reforms of Multilateral Pace and Security Architecture'.
The delegation, led by the LS speaker, will highlight Parliament of India's AI-related digital initiatives, including Sansad Bhashini, during the meetings.
The Sansad-Bhashini is an AI-enabled initiative taken to revolutionise parliamentary documents and accessibility through AI and real-time translations in the Indian Parliament. It is enabling the MPs, researchers and academia to access vast archives of Parliamentary debates and records in multiple languages.
The LS speaker will also dwell upon it at the summit which is envisioned to provide comprehensive In-House AI solutions for multilingual support and streamlined processes in parliamentary operations.
The delegation comprises of deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh, Surendra Singh Nagar,(MP,RS), Vijay Baghel (LS MP), Vivek Thakur (MP LS), Dr Shabari Byreddy ( LS, MP), Utpal Kumar Singh( Secretary, General LS) and PC Mody ( Secretary General Rajya Sabha).
The delegations will also participate in the proceedings during the Plenary sessions on the sub-themes like BRICS Parliamentary Action in Search of New Paths for Economic Development, Towards Stronger and More Durable BRICS Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation, BRICS Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for Global Health and BRICS Inter-Parliamentary Dialogue on Climate and Sustainability.
A joint statement will be adopted at the end of the Summit, and the LS speaker will also hold bilateral meetings with Presiding officers of participating Parliaments on the sidelines of the Forum.
Notably, the BRICS grouping comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
Presiding officers from Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan have been invited to participate in the forum meetings along with the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Tulia Ackson.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scroll.in
23 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
No plan to remove ‘secular', ‘socialist' from Preamble: Centre
The Union government has no plans or intention to remove the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Preamble to the Constitution, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal told Parliament on Thursday. Meghwal acknowledged that 'certain groups' were seeking the removal of the two words from the Preamble. 'Any discussions regarding amendments to the Preamble would require thorough deliberation and broad consensus, but as of now, the government has not initiated any formal process to change these provisions,' Meghwal told Rajya Sabha. The words 'socialist' and 'secular' were not part of the Constitution adopted in 1950 and were added in 1976 through the 42nd constitutional amendment. In November, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Subramanian Swamy and Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, in addition to a separate plea by a man named Balram Singh, challenging the 1976 amendment. Citing this ruling, the Union law minister said: 'The court clarified that 'socialism' in the Indian context signifies a welfare state and does not impede private sector growth, while 'secularism' is integral to the Constitution's basic structure.' The court had said in its order that there was no legitimate justification for challenging the constitutional amendment several decades later. The minister's response to Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman's questions in the Rajya Sabha came about a month after a political row erupted about the inclusion of the words in the Constitution. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in June called for a review of the two terms. The RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling BJP. A day after the comment by RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, Jagdeep Dhankhar, the vice president at the time, had said that the addition of the words 'secular' and 'socialist' to the Preamble of the Constitution during the Emergency was a ' sacrilege to the spirit of sanatana '. Sanatana dharma is a term some people use as a synonym for Hinduism. Union ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jitendra Singh had also voiced their support for a review. Chouhan had claimed that the words 'secular' and 'socialist' are not core to Indian culture and called for a discussion on their removal from the Constitution. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had criticised the RSS for seeking a review of the two words in the Preamble, saying that the Hindutva organisation's ' mask had come off again '. In 2015, a controversy erupted after the BJP-led Union government's newspaper advertisements on Republic Day featured a Preamble with the two words omitted. In September 2023, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury claimed that the two words were missing from the Preamble
Hindustan Times
23 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Should EC let dead people be in poll rolls, asks CEC
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday defended the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of Bihar's electoral rolls, questioning whether the Election Commission should allow deceased persons, permanent migrants and duplicate voters to remain registered amid opposition allegations that the exercise would disenfranchise crores of legitimate voters. Should EC let dead people be in poll rolls, asks CEC Kumar's strident defence came as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi escalated his attack on the poll panel, claiming his party possessed definitive proof of electoral fraud in Karnataka and threatening consequences for election officials. Speaking in Parliament premises, Gandhi declared: 'Not 90 per cent, when we decide to show it to you, it is a 100 per cent proof.' He alleged the Congress had discovered thousands of unauthorised voter entries for people aged 50, 60 and 65 in a single Karnataka constituency, alongside deletions of legitimate voters above 18. 'We just looked at one constituency and we found this. I am absolutely convinced that constituency after constituency this is the drama that is taking place,' Gandhi said, claiming similar manipulation was occurring during Bihar's SIR exercise. 'I want to send a message to the Election Commission: If you think you are going to get away with it, you are mistaken. We are going to come for you,' Gandhi warned. The CEC, in his remarks aimed generally at political criticism with respect to the exercise in Bihar, invoked constitutional principles, asking whether the Election Commission should 'get misled by some people' and 'pave the way for some to cast fake votes in the name of deceased voters, voters who have migrated permanently, voters who have got their votes registered at two places, fake voters or foreign voters, going against the Constitution, first in Bihar, then in the entire country.' 'The Constitution of India is the mother of Indian democracy,' Kumar stated, arguing that authentic voter lists prepared through transparent processes formed 'the foundation stone for fair elections and strong democracy.' 'Perhaps the most appropriate time for this essential thinking for all of you has now arrived in India,' he added, urging citizens to think beyond political ideologies. In a Thursday press note, the Commission revealed that 99% of Bihar's electors had been reached in the revision exercise, with forms from 72.1 million voters—91.32% of the total—already received and digitised. But BLOs and BLAs reported significant irregularities, the panel claimed. Nearly 2.2 million on the rolls were deceased, 3.2 million had migrated permanently, 700,000 registrations were duplicate and another 100,000 were untraceable voters. Despite door-to-door verification, roughly 700,000 electors were yet to submit their forms – the deadline for which was set for July 25. The Commission shared booth-level lists of problematic entries with all political parties on July 20, allowing claims and objections until September 1, 2025. The draft electoral roll will be published on August 1 and distributed to all 12 recognised parties in digital and printed formats. An ECI spokesperson dismissed Gandhi's Karnataka allegations as 'unwarranted' and 'baseless,' noting that Congress had filed no appeals with the District Magistrate or Chief Electoral Officer under Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Of 10 election petitions filed in Karnataka, none came from losing Congress candidates despite available legal remedies under Section 80 of the RP Act, 1951. 'ECI is wondering as to why such baseless and threatening allegations are being made against the CEC—and that too now?' the spokesperson questioned. Kumar advised that if an election petition had been filed, Gandhi should 'wait for the verdict of Hon'ble High Court,' otherwise refrain from making 'baseless allegations.'
Scroll.in
23 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Over 2.06 lakh Indians gave up their citizenship in 2024, says Centre
More than 2.06 lakh persons relinquished their Indian citizenship in 2024, the Union government told Parliament on Thursday. Kirti Vardhan Singh, the minister of state for external affairs, told Rajya Sabha that 2.16 lakh Indians had given up their citizenship in 2023. In 2022, more than 2.25 lakh Indians had given up their citizenship. The number was 1.6 lakh in 2021, 85,256 in 2020 and 1.4 lakh in 2019. The minister provided the data in response to a question by Congress MP Anil Kumar Yadav Mandadi, who had sought to know if the Union government undertakes a 'thorough checkup/survey/inspection before acceding to the request of relinquishment of Indian Citizenship'. Singh said that a person looking to renounce their Indian citizenship is required to apply online, following which, either a district collector or a consular officer verifies the original passport. Documents are uploaded and made available to all government departments for their inputs that are to be provided within 30 days, said the minister, adding that a renunciation certificate is issued after this period. In March, the Union government told Parliament that the number of Indians who gave up their citizenship stood at 1.34 lakh in 2018 and 1.33 lakh in 2017. 'The reasons for renouncing Indian citizenship or taking foreign citizenship are personal and known only to the individual,' the Union government had said. It added that it recognised the 'potential of the global workplace in an era of knowledge economy', which had brought about a 'transformational change in its engagement with Indian diaspora'. 'A successful, prosperous, and influential diaspora is an asset for India,' said the government. 'India stands to gain a lot from tapping its diaspora networks and productive utilisation of the soft power that comes from having such a flourishing diaspora.'
