Indian parliamentarians to attend classes at Yale

Lalit K Jha

Washington, Jun 8 (PTI) In order to learn some tips of
leadership, management and international relations, a team of
young Indian parliamentarians led by Congress leader Abhishek
Manu Singhvi will attend classes at America's Yale University
later this month.

Classes will be held at the Yale University, New Haven
Connecticut, from June 21 to 26 as part of India-Yale
Parliamentary Leadership Programme.

The programme launched in 2007 in collaboration with the
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
and India-US Forum of Parliamentarians is aimed at providing
insight and perspective to young leaders by giving them the
exposure of different fields and ideas.

Singhvi, member of Rajya Sabha (upper house), is the
current Chair of the India-US Forum of Parliamentarians.

Though the list is yet to be finalised, former Chief
Minister of India's southern state of Karnataka, H D
Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal-Secular; Neeraj Shekhar, son of
former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar; besides BJP spokesman
Prakash Javadekar and his party MP from northern state of
Himachal Pradesh, Anurag Singh Thakur are among those expected
to attend the programme.

Two-time Congress MP Priya Dutt, young lawmaker Shruti
Choudhary, daughter of Tourism Minister of northern state of
Haryana Kiran Choudhary; Ijyaraj Singh of Kota Royal family,
who represents Kota constituency and Mohammad Hamdullah
Sayeed, son of former Union Power Minister P M Sayeed, are
also among the expected list of ten MPs.

Lectures, discussions and private meetings with renowned
practitioners in their areas will complement the curricular
activities of the program.

Faculty for the programme is drawn from experts at Yale
as well as research institutes, government offices, and
private sector.

Besides attending classes, the MPs will also travel to
Washington to meet US lawmakers and have interactive sessions
with the officials of the Obama Administration.

Launching the programme in 2007, Yale President Richard C
Levin had said: "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."

Since 2004, Yale had held governmental programmes for
senior leaders from China, Japan, Kazakhstan and the United
Arab Emirates. PTI