- Sunday, May 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Indian parliament, which saw the beginning of the monsoon session of the year on Monday (18), paid special tributes to late Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe before the procedures kicked off officially.
Om Birla, the speaker of the Lok Sabha or Lower House of the parliament, read out tributes paid by various Indian leaders in a session that went on for around 10 minutes.
Following his speech, all the members of the Lok Sabha rose to observe a minute’s silence in the honour of Kibaki who passed away in April at the age of 90.
During his reign, Kibaki, who served as Kenya’s third president between 2002 and 2013, put a special emphasis on improved relationship between his country and India.
In 2011, Kibaki had urged various African nations to focus on a longlasting relationship with the South Asian nation that would include sharing of technologies and contribution towards sustainable development and alleviation of poverty.
Also during that year’s Africa-India Forum Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the former Kenyan president insisted that Africa would gain from collaboration in areas such as agricultural development to address shortage of food.
The speaker of the Indian Lok Sabha also paid tribute to other late world leaders such as Shinzo Abe, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and other fallen leaders from India. In all, the Lower House of the Indian parliament paid tributes to 11 leaders who have passed away since the beginning of 2022.
Birla also said that India lost a true friend in Abe, the former prime minister of Japan who was recently shot dead in his own country, in the presence of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi who had been a close friend of the late Japanese leader.
