Officials and administrative staff from throughout Delaware County met today with a delegation of visitors from India and Pakistan who are spending a one-month residency in the U.S., learning about government systems here.
The visiting group included Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, a member of the legislative assembly in the Tamilnadu state of India; Parimal Maya Sudhakar, the head of academics at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology’s School of Government in India; Abbas Ali Khan, the deputy secretary to the chief minister of the Gilgit-Baltistan state in Pakistan; Ross Parkash Mahtani, the senior program officer for the Community World Service Asia organization, based in Pakistan; and Syed Zulqarnain Raza Naqvi, a lawyer, professor and political activist in the Pakistani states of Jammu and Kashmir.
They met with Delaware County Commissioner Barb Lewis, Delaware County Juvenile/Probate Court Judge David Hejmanowski, Delaware County Administrator Ferzan Ahmed, Delaware City Manager Tom Homan, Orange Township Administrator Lee Bodnar and Liberty Township Administrator Matt Huffman.
Ohio State Representative Andrew Brenner, whose office helped arrange the visit, also joined the group for a two-hour discussion, which included presentations from the county’s Job and Family Services department and the Juvenile Court’s teen-mentoring program.
During the meeting, the group covered a wide range of topics, including the nature of federal, state and local funding in the U.S. systems of government, as well as the similarities between U.S., Indian and Pakistani legal systems.
“We were tremendously honored that the delegation made time to visit with us,” said Commissioner Lewis. “While we shared a lot of information about ourselves with them, I feel we also learned so much about them and their systems of government.”
For information about Delaware County, please http://www.co.delaware.oh.us.
