India, which holds the G20 presidency under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scored big geopolitical points at the recently held New Delhi Summit.
G20 is the Group of 20 leading world economies or blocs such as European Union (EU) to foster global trade, economic cooperation and partnerships.
India holds the current G20 presidency for one year from Dec 2022 to Nov 2023. Brazil will hold the next presidency of G20.
G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.
At the New Delhi Summit, the African Union was inducted as a member, thus giving G20 a more representative face and fostering ‘Global South’ kinship.
At the end of two-day Summit, India achieved a significant success by ensuring consensus of the member countries on more than 100 agendas without resorting to sub-text in the Declaration draft. It heralded the winning streak of astute Indian bureaucracy and diplomacy.
G20 brings together the world’s major economies. Its members account for 85 percent of global GDP, 75 percent of global trade and 65 percent of the world’s population.
India’s success reflected the growing heft of India in the community of nations and the leadership profile of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a global leader.
Although China president Xi Jinping and Russia president Vladimir Putin did not attend the G20 deliberations, yet their countries were adequately represented by respective delegations.
While Putin marked his absence due to the ongoing Ukraine war, Xi Jinping chose to send his delegation instead amid acerbic US-China trade war and China’s imperialistic foreign and military maneuvers.
Nonetheless, the Modi dispensation checked all the fight boxes at the G20 Summit by hosting US president Joe Biden apart from the top politicians of Europe and the Gulf region.
India’s G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant navigated victoriously to ensure that the Indian viewpoint prevailed at the Summit both in deliberations and declaration.
At the same time, the Modi government made an explicit pitch for the nomenclature of Bharat for India at an important global event.
According to the IMF, India is projected to grow 5.9 percent this year compared to China at 5.2 percent and the US at merely 1.6 percent.
The three years of pandemic did impact India’s revenue collection. It took a heavy toll on the exchequer owing to free vaccination and food grain distribution.
Yet, India emerged rather unscathed through difficult terrains and choppy waters. This not only kept the domestic economy afloat but contributed robustly to the global fortitude.
In recent years, India has been firming up geopolitical ties with new allies and proliferating its independent foreign policy to protect its long term territorial, food security and economic interests.
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The G20 Summit has taken that agenda forward, which is to make India or Bharat the ‘Vishwa Guru’ it once was.