Committee Briefed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, held a pre-departure interaction with Ministry of External Affairs officials on June 21, 2026, ahead of its four-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri briefed the panel on India-China ties, focusing on the border issue, and recent developments with Pakistan.
Visit to Strategically Sensitive Regions
The committee is scheduled to travel to Jammu, Srinagar, Kargil, and Leh from June 22 to 25. Members will receive further briefings from civil and military authorities on the ground, including a visit to a Line of Control observation point in Kargil. Tharoor stated that the Delhi briefing served as an orientation for the strategically sensitive areas.
Tharoor Highlights Importance of Ground Briefings
“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,” Tharoor 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.”
Panel to Engage with Stakeholders
In a message after the meeting, Tharoor said the panel looked 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 Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who is due to retire shortly, calling his briefings “superb, candid and insightful.”
Key Attendees and Itinerary
The meeting was attended by BJP MPs Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sudhanshu Trivedi, and Arun Govil, as well as AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. The itinerary includes a visit to Kargil, where members will be briefed by the armed forces and taken to an LoC observation point, offering lawmakers a first-hand assessment of the security environment.
