PM to hold 40 meetings during 3-nation tour

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday depart for Hiroshima to participate in the G7 summit, where he will look to foreground issues related to the Global South, and follow it up with a visit to Papua New Guinea, the first by an Indian PM, before finally landing in Australia.
Ahead of Modi's departure, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said the Quad summit, which was scheduled for next week in Sydney but was cancelled, was also likely to now take place on the margins of G7. While "several deliverables" are expected from the Quad summit, Modi in all will have more than 40 engagements, including meetings with close to a couple of dozen leaders, during his three-nation tour.
This will be the 10th time than an Indian PM will participate in the G7 summit. Modi is expected to address issues concerning food, fertiliser and energy security at the summit.
The G7 summit will focus on issues like nuclear disarmament, economic resilience, economic security, regional issues, climate change, energy security, food and health. Kwatra said India's participation at the summit would be structured around two formal sessions on May 20 and another one the day after. The first session would be on food, health, development and gender equality, the second one will be on climate, energy and environment while the third session would be on the theme "peaceful stable and prosperous world".
To a question on India's position on the Ukraine conflict, Kwatra referred to Modi's message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is not an era of war during a bilateral meeting in the Uzbek city of Samarkand in September last year.
Kwatra said India's regular participation at the G7 summits points to an acknowledgment that india should be a part of any serious effort to resolve global challenges including those of peace, security and development. "This is even salient in the context of our ongoing presidency of the G20 and our particular efforts to prioritise the interests and concerns of our fellow members of the global south," he said.
Modi will travel to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea from Japan where he will host the third summit of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) on May 22 jointly with PM James Marape. The Quad summit was originally scheduled to be held in Sydney but it will now take place in Hiroshima as Biden postponed his visit to Australia to focus on crucial debt-ceiling talks in Washington.