The 153rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union was held in which city?

The correct answer is Milton Dick, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Australia, who was declared elected after a secret ballot in the IPU Governing Council on the closing day of the Assembly. Option A, Harivansh, is wrong: he is the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and led the Indian Parliamentary Delegation to Arusha, and he was one of the three Indian members who cast India's votes in the election, not a candidate for the post. Option C, Mussa Azzan Zungu, is wrong because he is the Speaker of the National Assembly of Tanzania and served as President of this particular Assembly, the sitting he formally declared closed; presiding over one Assembly in the host country is a different thing from heading the organisation. Option D, Sasmit Patra, is wrong as well; he is a Rajya Sabha member of the delegation and his role was to hand the newly elected President a letter of congratulation from the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

The correct answer is the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Harivansh, who led the Indian Parliamentary Delegation at Arusha and was one of the three members who cast India's votes for the IPU presidency. Option A, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, is wrong, though the Speaker is connected with the event in another way: the letter of congratulation presented to the newly elected President came from the Lok Sabha Speaker, carried by the Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra. Option C, the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, is wrong and is simply a confusion of the two Houses and their presiding officers. Option D, the Minister of External Affairs, is wrong on a point of principle worth remembering: the Inter-Parliamentary Union is a forum of national parliaments rather than of governments, so a country is represented there by a parliamentary delegation of members of its legislature and not by its foreign ministry. The other two Indian votes were cast by the Lok Sabha members Anurag Singh Thakur and Kamaljeet Sehrawat.

The correct answer is option A. The text taken up as the emergency item sought urgent parliamentary action to address climate-related disasters and to strengthen resilience in the Himalayan region and other vulnerable regions, a subject of obvious concern to India and its neighbours. Option B, reform of the United Nations Security Council, is wrong; that is a recurring theme of debates among governments at the United Nations, not the emergency item of this Assembly. Option C, regulation of artificial intelligence in elections, is wrong and finds no place among the documents adopted here. Option D, debt relief for the least developed countries, is wrong as well. Candidates should keep the three outcomes of the Assembly apart: the Arusha Communiqué, the resolution of the Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights on inclusive social development and the rights and empowerment of persons with disabilities, and the emergency item on climate-related disasters.

The correct answer is Dr Lata Wankhede, a Member of the Lok Sabha, who attended the meeting of the Standing Committee on Sustainable Development and joined the panel discussion on artificial intelligence and the future of work. Option B is wrong because Dr Sasmit Patra, a Rajya Sabha member, attended the Standing Committee on United Nations Affairs and spoke in the panel on the United Nations machinery for conflict prevention and resolution. Option C is wrong because Dr Anurag Singh Thakur took part in the debate on the emergency item and in the Bureau and meeting of the Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights. Option D is wrong because Harivansh, as Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, led the delegation and attended the emergency item debate and the General Debate.

The correct answer is Nepal. The emergency item, titled "Urgent parliamentary action to address climate-related disasters and strengthen resilience in the Himalayan region and other vulnerable regions", was proposed by Nepal and adopted on the third day of the Assembly. Option A is wrong because India did not propose it, although Dr Anurag Singh Thakur spoke in its support and placed India’s point of view on record during the debate. Option C is wrong because Bhutan is not named in connection with the item. Option D is wrong because Tanzania was the host country of the Assembly at Arusha, not the proposer. For the examination, note that emergency items at an IPU Assembly are proposed by a member parliament and adopted by the Assembly before being debated, which is why the proposer is a common question.