South Asia People's Assembly begins in Nepal

A three-day conference of South Asia People's Assembly or People's South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) began here on Friday.

The Conference is being organized for making recommendations through discussion and their implementation for pressurizing the SAARC summit for implementation of labor rights in South Asia, peace and disarmament process, governance system, women and peace, inter-religious issues, natural resources management, refugee problem, communication, parliamentary forum, farmer's forum, food sovereignty, agriculture and farmers rights.

Initiating the conference organized by the People's SAARC Preparatory Committee, Nepali Speaker Subash Chandra Nembang said that people in the region have not been able to get basic facilities such as education, health, food-grains, clothes even if the SAARC countries are rich socially, culturally, geographically, in terms of natural resources and in caste basis as they have not yet been fully discovered and utilized.

He also pointed out the need of struggle for justice in the region, while stating that democracy is indispensable for justice.

Parliamentarians of the SAARC countries including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal, leaders of various organizations, student leaders, representatives of women, children, indigenous people, disabled and professional organizations took part in the conference.

Source: Xinhua