Baku, Azerbaijan: India on Wednesday made a strong pitch for reforms in multi-lateral bodies, including Non Aligned Movement, and said the current arrangements and working methods ought to be 'revitalised'.
"Multi lateralism is undoubtedly under strain today. It is important that our Movement that represents two thirds of the world’s population - continues to work together and take the lead in building multilateral governance structures that are capable of meeting these challenges," External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar said addressing the Ministerial Meeting of the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.
"We must reform and revitalise the current arrangements and working methods of our Movement, to allow us to pursue a positive and forward looking agenda. At the same time, we must guard against attempts to divide us and to misuse multilateral platforms to further narrow interests," he said.
"The world today has moved on from what the NAM founding leaders faced in Bandung in 1955. The scales of global geo-political balance have shifted, and continue to do so, propelled by forces of globalisation and transformational technological progress," he said.
He further said, "Long-held assumption and alignments rooted in the legacies of colonialism and the ideology of the Cold War are making way for new configurations and partnerships".
In sum, the Minister said: "....a democratic, effective, flexible, credible, transparent and representative, multilateral order – reformed multi-lateralism is a 21st century imperative".
Dr Jaishankar further said, "We are more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Climate change , environmental degradation, terrorism, radicalisation, poverty, public health emergencies, humanitarian and natural calamities, cyber security threats, and the serious security implications of frontier technologies are just some of the challenges of this new world."
Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu is leading the Indian delegation to the NAM Summit this year.
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