Pratibha Patil's farewell speech to Parliamentarians

New Delhi: As Pranab Mukherjee gets ready to be sworn in as the 13th President of India, the farewell ceremonies for the outgoing President Pratibha Patil have begun.

Pratibha gave her farewell speech in the Rajya Sabha earlier on Monday evening. The Prime Minister is hosting a farewell dinner for President Pratibha Patil at Hyderabad House in the capital.

Pratibha will host a dinner for President-elect Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with his cabinet colleagues in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is hosting a farewell dinner for President Pratibha Patil at Hyderabad House in the capital.

In her farewell speech to Parliamentarians in New Delhi, Pratibha pointed out that varied political thinking is a part of any legislature and more in a country as large and diverse as India. Though this adds to the "vibrancy" of our democratic institutions, it also poses a challenge as a multiplicity of expectations is to be met.

Pratibha cautioned MPs not to voice their dissensions in Parliament at the cost of serious debate and legislations and maintained that they should keep abreast of new developments in technology and information explosion while making laws.

The outgoing President also pointed out that in the last two decades there have been changes "such as information explosion, technological innovations, increasing economic prosperity, growing materialism and in its midst the danger of losing values".

With Additional Inputs From PTI

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