PM Modi asserts, India is natural ally of G-7 to defend shared values from threats stemming from authoritarianism, terrorism
New Delhi, June 13
Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in three outreach sessions of the just concluded G7 Summit over the past two days. Briefing media this evening, P Harish, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations in the Ministry of External Affairs said, Mr Modi spoke on various elements of building life better, stronger together and greener.
The Prime Minister spoke on two sessions today- on Climate Change and Open Societies. On Climate Change, Prime Minister Modi called for collective action, recognizing that this challenge cannot be addressed in silos. He spoke of India’s achievements on Climate Action and shared that India is the only G20 country on track to meet its Paris Commitments, which are 2 degree compatible.
Mr Modi highlighted the need for Climate Action to include all dimensions of mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer, financing and equity, climate justice and lifestyle change, to provide the necessary space for the developing countries to grow. He called on the G7 to meet their unfulfilled promise of 100 billion dollars annually in climate finance. He also highlighted India’s leadership of global initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance and CDRI (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure).
The third Session pertained to Open Societies and Open Economies and Prime Minister was a Lead Speaker at this session. He highlighted India’s civilizational commitment to democracy, freedom of thought and liberty. He said, India is a natural ally for the G7 and Guest Countries to defend these shared values from a host of threats stemming from authoritarianism, terrorism and violent extremism, disinformation and infodemics and economic coercion.
He also underscored the vulnerabilities inherent in open societies and called on tech companies and social media platforms to ensure a safe cyber environment for their users.
The Leaders emphasized their commitment to a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific and resolved to collaborate with partners in the region. Prime Minister Modi also made a strong pitch for the reform of the Multilateral system based on the same principles of openness, democracy, transparency and inclusion.
In the outreach session held yesterday, Prime Minister Modi sought their strong support for India and South Africa’s proposal for a TRIPS waiver at the WTO.
His call was echoed by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed his strong support for the TRIPS waiver, as did the Director General of the WTO, Dr. Okonjo Iweala, and the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who identified the TRIPS waiver as an important element of his ‘Global Vaccination Plan’- a roadmap to vaccinate the entire global population by doubling vaccine production. President of France Emmanuel Macron also highlighted the need to focus on ramping up production capacity in Africa and called on India to lend its expertise as an important production hub globally.
Mr Harish said, the G7 and guest countries are important for India as we enjoy political, economic and cultural engagement with each of the members.
Three of the P5 countries of the UNSC are members of the G7. He said the UK’s choice of inviting India as a guest country is well calibrated.
Prime Minister Modi had been invited to the Summit by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The UK is currently holding the presidency of the G7. Along with Prime Minister Modi, Prime Ministers of Australia, South Africa and South Korea were also invited to the outreach sessions on the Summit.
UK conveyed to India that while Prime Minister Johnson was disappointed at not being able to welcome Prime Minister Modi in person at the Summit, he was understanding and supportive of this decision. All possible arrangements were made to ensure a seamless participation for Prime Minister Modi and his engagement with other leaders at the Summit. Each leader at the summit had a personal screen in front carrying Mr Modi’s feed to ensure that it felt like he was actually in the room as the UK host had promised.