Hamid Ansari to represent India at Perth CHOGM

LONDON: Vice President Hamid Ansari will represent India at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia's Perth city on October 28, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has said.

"Hosts (Australia) would have liked to have Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to attend but he could not do so owing to other pressing engagements," Sharma told reporters at a pre-CHOGM briefing here last evening.

Sharma said India has been actively involved with the Commonwealth, among other things, in setting up the Election Management Bodies.

"Two reports, one by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and the other by the Eminent Persons Group - on modernisation of the organisation - will come up before the CHOGM," he said.

Climate change will also figure prominently during the deliberations in Perth, he said.

Acknowledging the contributions made by India "both in cash and kind" to implement various programmes of the Commonwealth, Sharma said: "we have to upgrade the Commonwealth youth centre in Chandigarh."

The Commonwealth Secretary General said the next CHOGM would be held in Sri Lanka in 2013 and in Mauritius in 2015.

Sharma said he would be visiting Pakistan some time in the first half of next year.