Commonwealth Secretary General to meet Manmohan Singh today

New Delhi, Oct 20 : Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma will meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh here today

Issues related to the 53-member grouping of former British colonies and developments in South Asia and issues are expected to be discussed during the meeting.

Later, Sharma is scheduled to call on Vice President Hamid Ansari and meet Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.

On Tuesday, he is scheduled to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani, besides meeting Sports Minister M.S. Gill.

During his meetings with Indian leaders, Sharma will discuss progress made in key focus areas agreed by leaders at the Commonwealth Summit in Kampala last year. These include building respect and understanding between those of different faith, ethnicity and language; reforming the global - particularly financial - institutions; and progress on meeting the challenge of climate change.

Sharma, India's former High Commissioner to Britain, is on his first official visit to India after taking over as Commonwealth Secretary General six month ago. He arrived here from Pune where he attended the Commonwealth Youth Games.

ANI