New Delhi: Vice-president Hamid Ansari left India on Thursday to attend the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit being held at Venezuela’s Margarita Island. The 17th NAM summit started on Tuesday and will continue till 18 September. This is the first NAM summit that will not be attended by an Indian PM, except for 1979 when caretaker Prime Minister Charan Singh skipped the summit held in Havana. The last NAM summit was held in Tehran in 2012 and then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had attended it. In fact, to host the NAM summit, President Nicolas Maduro has reportedly shut down Margarita Island.

Source: Mint September 15, 2016 10:52 UTC