PremiumPrime minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired an all-party meeting to discuss strategies for the G20 under India’s presidency
NEW DELHI : Prime minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired an all-party meeting to discuss strategies for the G20 under India’s presidency.
India took over presidency of the influential grouping from Indonesia on 1 December.
The meeting was attended by union home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, defence minister Rajnath Singh and commerce minister Piyush Goyal, among other ministers.
Also attending the meeting were chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Prem Singh Tamang (Sikkim), Eknath Shinde (Maharashtra), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), Jagan Mohan Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) and M.K. Stalin (Tamil Nadu).
Among the chiefsof political parties who were present were, BJP president J.P. Nadda, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury , and Telugu Desam Party president Chandrababu Naidu.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Modi thanked global leaders for extending their support to India after the assumption of G20 presidency.
India will host the G-20 leaders‘ summit in New Delhi on 9 and 10 September in 2023.
The meetings are expected to take place at exotic locations across the country.
Monday’s meeting gains significance, as the government plans to connect all districts and blocks across the country with the G20 programme.
On Sunday, discussions took place at the first Sherpa meeting of the G20 under India’s presidency.
The discussions on technological transformation and green development and lifestyle for environment, global and regional economy were initiated by India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, through an overview of India’s G20 priorities.
He highlighted India’s role in providing a greater voice to the ‘Global South’, and utilizing its G20 presidency to forge win-win collaborations between developing countries and advanced economies.
The theme for the India’s G20 Presidency is ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’.
After taking over the presidency, Prime minister Modi on 3 December wrote in a blog post said that some countries remain trapped in the “zero-sum mindset“ fighting over territory or resources and weaponizing supplies of essential goods.
“We see it when countries fight over territory or resources. We see it when supplies of essential goods are weaponised. We see it when vaccines are hoarded by a few, even as billions remain vulnerable," he wrote.
The G20 was founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis as a forum for finance ministers and central bank governors to discuss global economic and financial issues.
The Group of Twenty (G20) comprises 19 countries. The G20 members represent around 85% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), over 75% of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.