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Mahesh

25/06/24 05:59 AM IST

India stand with respect to the G-7

In News
  • Leaders of the Group of Seven, the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Japan, the U.K. and Italy, met in Italy’s Apulia region, along with the European Union leadership, for a summit to discuss a host of issues.
G-7 Summit Significance
  • Bridging differences between the “West and the Rest”, finding new ways to fund support for the Ukraine war, investing in Africa and grappling with migration, climate change and artificial intelligence challenges, were all on the agenda for G-7 leaders.
  • They agreed to make $50 billion more available for Ukraine, carving it out from frozen sovereign wealth funds of Russia, held a special “Energy for Growth in Africa” summit to spur investments in clean energy, attacked China for coercive trade practices, and met with leaders of 10 countries, including India, and multilateral organisations, as part of the “G-7 Outreach”, to discuss the concerns of the Global South.
  • Apart from substantive issues, the G-7 grouping has also been trying to battle its own image, as a tired set of countries representing the old world of the ‘western elite’. 
India's Importance in G-7
  • India has been an important part of the G-7 process for several years now, coming to the grouping’s attention in the 2000s for its steady growth figures during the global financial collapse.
  • India is not only a key member of the Global South, and has hosted the “Voice of Global South” conference since 2023, it is also a member of the G-20 troika, along with Brazil and South Africa. Besides, Prime Minister Modi is a central figure at such outreaches, though India is not a member of the G-7. 
  • Other countries whose leaders attended the outreach were Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Jordan, Kenya, Mauritania, Tunisia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates, along with heads of the African Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations and the World Bank. 
Future of G-7
  • The G-7 is increasingly under attack for being an elitist, non-inclusive group, that doesn’t include three of the world’s top 10 economies, China, India and Brazil, or representation from the rest of the world, like the G-20 does, for example.
  • In addition, the G-7, which has not increased its membership (in fact, it decreased it, by dropping Russia in 2014), is increasingly being challenged by a grouping like BRICS, that has now doubled its size from the original Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa grouping to include other countries and energy majors like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, as well as Egypt and Ethiopia.
  • That the G-7 has been unable to change the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or stop Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza, or deterred China from its inroads into global connectivity and infrastructure and economic influence, is raising more questions about its relevance. 
  • It remains to be seen how the G-7, which may have a different composition of leaders, given impending elections in the U.K. and the U.S., stands up to the challenge to re-invent itself as an effective grouping.
  • It will next convene for the annual summit in Canada’s Alberta region in 2025; the question is whether India will continue to accept a spot on its margins.
Source- The Hindu

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