Against the backdrop of security challenges along India’s western and northern frontiers, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs has received detailed briefings on developments relating to Pakistan and China ahead of its four-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh beginning Monday.
The committee, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, held a pre-departure interaction with officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, attended by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, focusing on India-China ties with particular reference to the border issue and recent developments in relations with Pakistan.
The panel is scheduled to travel to Jammu, Srinagar, Kargil and Leh from June 22 to 25 and is expected to receive further briefings from civil and military authorities on the ground.
Tharoor said the interaction in Delhi served as an orientation ahead of the visit to strategically sensitive areas.
“This was a pre-orientation briefing because the committee is going on a tour of J&K and Ladakh — Jammu, Srinagar, Leh and Kargil — and the Foreign Secretary was briefing us on both the Indo-Pakistan issue and India-China issues,” he said.
“We are going to the LoC lookout point in Kargil and we will get briefings from the military on the ground there. So we got the MEA briefing here. We will get briefings in Srinagar and Jammu,” Tharoor added.
In a message posted after the meeting, Tharoor said the panel was looking forward to engaging with a range of stakeholders and gaining “a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges in this strategically important region”.
He also paid tribute to Misri, who is due to retire shortly. “My best wishes to our outstanding Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on his impending retirement. He has honoured the committee with superb, candid and insightful briefings and interactions over the last couple of years. We will miss him!” Tharoor said.
Besides Tharoor, the meeting was attended by BJP MPs Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sudhanshu Trivedi and Arun Govil, among others, as well as AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. The panel’s itinerary includes a visit to Kargil, where members are expected to be briefed by the armed forces and taken to a Line of Control observation point, offering lawmakers a first-hand assessment of the security environment in one of India’s most strategically significant regions.
