India all set to join G-20 ‘troika’ in Rome next week

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 23

Though at least half a dozen leaders have dropped out, next week’s G-20 summit is important for India as it will be the in-waiting Chair of the world’s most powerful economic grouping from this meeting in Rome.

India will hold the G-20 presidency from December 1, 2022, and will convene the G20 leaders’ summit in 2023 for the first time.

Indonesia will take over the chair from Italy and India will join both as the “G-20 troika”, which comprises past, present and future chairs of G-20.

Though the summit is scheduled to be held from October 30 to 31, PM Modi may depart for Rome a day earlier on October 28 as his audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican has been confirmed for the next day. The MEA was among the several foreign offices that had been trying for a call-on by their leader on the Pope on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

PM Modi will then attend the 26th meeting of an UN-sponsored meeting on climate change in Glasgow. There are indications that he may stay on in Glasgow for another day to co-chair an event with UK PM Boris Johnson.

PM Modi has been leading India’s representation at all successive G-20 summits since 2014. India is a founder-member of the G20 which has not changed in size since its inception in 1999.

At the G-20 meeting, there are expectations that the threads will be picked up on Afghanistan after the 10-country meeting with a Taliban delegation in Moscow and the earlier talks at the UN where generous humanitarian donations were announced. The Taliban has yet shown no inclination of meeting the prerequisites for recognising their dispensation in Kabul – an inclusive government accommodating Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara leaders.