Parliaments have responsibility to listen to young voices: Speaker Birla

Birla’s central message was that young people should be heard, not treated as passive recipients of policy. He said parliaments must understand their hopes and concerns and create routes for their energy, creativity and capabilities to support nation-building. This matters because youth aspirations shape a nation’s future.

He pointed to young people’s growing access to quality education and technological knowledge. Their desire to innovate, excel and contribute should be matched with meaningful opportunities, dignity and an environment where their talents can flourish. These conditions allow potential to become practical contribution.

Birla also said parliaments are living institutions that must evolve with changing public aspirations. Their role therefore extends beyond making laws. They must foster dialogue, build consensus, remain transparent and stay accountable to the citizens they represent while responding to the needs of younger generations.

The BRICS Parliamentary Forum is a meeting of parliamentary leaders from BRICS countries. Its purpose is to support dialogue between legislatures, share institutional experience and consider common challenges. The 12th edition was hosted by India at Parliament House and carried the theme “Strengthening Parliaments for People-Centric Development.”

The two-day forum focused on four connected pillars: resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability. These themes link the work of parliaments with stronger democratic institutions and more inclusive development. Leaders could compare practices and learn from one another’s institutional strengths.

India’s hosting gave BRICS parliamentary leaders a platform for comprehensive deliberations. Birla urged them to turn dialogue into concrete cooperation and to translate earlier summit commitments into outcomes. The forum also reflected BRICS’s stated responsibility to amplify the voice of the Global South and encourage peaceful responses to global challenges.

BRICS is a major grouping whose parliamentary forum brings together representatives of its member countries. Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Harivansh highlighted its scale, saying the group represents around 49.5% of the world’s population. That makes its parliamentary conversations relevant to a very large share of humanity.

The figure matters because decisions, cooperation and shared approaches discussed by BRICS parliaments can have broad reach. The forum’s agenda included resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability. These pillars were presented as important for strengthening democratic institutions and advancing inclusive development in an interconnected world.

Birla said BRICS also has a responsibility to amplify the voice of the Global South. He called for commitments made at the BRICS Summit to become real outcomes. The group’s population share therefore adds weight to efforts to turn parliamentary dialogue into cooperation on shared challenges.

Birla said youth cannot contribute fully to nation-building through education and technology alone. They also need meaningful opportunities, dignity and an enabling environment. These conditions matter because they help young people turn knowledge, creativity and ambition into useful work for society.

The article describes young people as having growing access to quality education and technological knowledge. It also highlights their desire to innovate, excel and contribute. Parliaments should therefore create pathways that channel their energy and capabilities into nation-building, rather than leaving their aspirations without practical outlets.

Birla connected these needs to the wider responsibilities of parliaments. Legislatures must listen to young voices, understand their concerns and adapt as public aspirations change. By fostering dialogue, building consensus and remaining accountable, they can help create the supportive conditions in which youth talent develops and contributes to the collective future.

Birla’s message was that meetings and statements matter only when they lead to results. He urged BRICS countries to transform experience into joint action, understanding into enduring trust and dialogue into meaningful cooperation. This would give parliamentary engagement a practical effect beyond discussion.

The mechanism is collaboration between legislatures. By sharing experiences, exchanging best practices and learning from institutional strengths, BRICS parliaments could devise innovative responses to shared challenges. They could also act as bridges of understanding, strengthen mutual confidence and support peaceful, constructive approaches to global problems.

The immediate challenge is to translate commitments in the BRICS Summit joint statement into outcomes. If that happens, the engagement could help lay foundations for a more equitable, inclusive and peaceful world. It would also support BRICS’s responsibility to amplify the voice of the Global South.

Birla rejected the idea that differences among BRICS nations necessarily weaken cooperation. He described their diversity as an asset because countries can bring distinct experiences, practices and institutional strengths to the same conversation. That variety can widen the range of possible solutions.

The key mechanism is mutual learning. Parliamentary leaders can share experiences, exchange best practices and study how other institutions address challenges. Those comparisons can help the group collectively devise innovative responses instead of relying on a single national approach.

The article links this cooperation to broader outcomes. Sustained engagement could strengthen understanding, build mutual confidence and help parliaments serve as bridges between peoples. Birla said such work could lay foundations for a more equitable, inclusive and peaceful world, while supporting peaceful responses to global challenges.

In general democratic terms, a parliament is an institution in which elected representatives speak for citizens, debate public issues and help make decisions for the country. Its representative role connects public concerns with government action. The article describes parliaments as vibrant expressions of the people’s will.

Their accountability works through constructive dialogue, consensus-building, transparency and responsibility to citizens. Birla said a parliament’s strength lies not only in constitutional authority but also in its ability to maintain these practices. Listening to young voices is one example of representation responding to changing public needs.

The article also presents parliaments as living institutions. They must evolve with people’s aspirations and can serve as bridges of understanding between countries. By engaging citizens’ concerns and scrutinising public choices through open discussion, they help democratic institutions remain responsive, trusted and accountable.