Kindly accept my
congratulations, Sir, on your election to the presidency
of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.
My delegation assures you of its full cooperation as we
address issues identified in the annual report of the
Secretary-General (A/62/1) and as we responsibly and
creatively move forward with pending reforms of the
Organization.
At the outset I would like to express India’s deep
gratitude to all Member States for the recent
unanimous adoption by the General Assembly of
resolution 61/271, deciding to annually observe the
International Day of Non-Violence, on 2 October, the
anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. I also
look forward to participation by Member States in the
informal plenary meeting of the General Assembly and
other functions being organized tomorrow at the United
Nations to mark the first International Day of
Non-Violence.
A central topic for this year’s debate
responding to climate change is both timely and
relevant. India’s views on it were recently set forth at
the high-level event on climate change, which took
place here on 24 September. Combined with the
exchange of views in the general debate, it will no
doubt provide a useful backdrop to the meeting of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change to be held later this year in Bali, Indonesia.
The impact of climate change and environmental
degradation falls disproportionately upon developing
countries. Developing countries are the most
vulnerable to it, and also lack the means to tackle it.
Measures to address climate change must be based on
mitigation and adaptation strategies with fair burden-
sharing and measures to realize sustainable patterns of
consumption and production. The process of burden-
sharing must also take into account where the primary
responsibility for the present state of greenhouse gas
concentration in the atmosphere rests and not foreclose
rapid and sustained economic development for the
developing world, which, in any case, is an imperative
for adaptation.
Technology is the other key area that needs to be
addressed. It is important that critical clean
technologies be made available and affordable to
developing countries. The intellectual property rights
regime must balance rewards for innovators with the
common good of humankind. Concerted international
action to address climate change, in accordance with
the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities, as well as
national circumstances and social and economic
conditions, is the need of the hour. India, for which
energy security is a national imperative, has a very
small individual carbon footprint, with per capita
carbon dioxide emissions at just about a quarter of the
world’s average. Even so, we are determined that, as
we pursue economic growth, our per capita greenhouse
gas emissions will not increase beyond those of the
industrial countries.
Poverty and underdevelopment are amongst the
central challenges of our times. The overarching
requirement is for sustained economic growth to
eradicate poverty in developing countries. However,
economic growth must also be measured against the
template of social inclusion. Growth alone is not
enough if it does not produce benefits that are
sufficiently dispersed, not only in terms of increased
income and employment, but also for improved health,
nutrition and education for all.
I affirm India’s resolve to achieve the
internationally agreed development goals, including
the Millennium Development Goals. The Government
of India accords the highest priority to inclusive
growth, including the political, legal, educational and
economic empowerment of women, effective and
affordable public health, and enhanced access to
educational opportunities, especially for all those who
are disadvantaged.
It is apparent that progress in the achievement of
the internationally agreed development goals has been
tardy. The international community, through the United
Nations system, must more effectively support the
efforts of developing countries to achieve the
development goals. A comprehensive reform of the
international financial architecture is a key ingredient
in that process. The United Nations must play an
important role in overseeing the reform of the
international financial architecture. That should include
measures to ensure a greater voice for and participation
by developing countries in the Bretton Woods
institutions. The process of reform must be carried to
its logical conclusion if the credibility of those
institutions is to be enhanced.
We must also address as a priority the regrettable
inversion of global resource flows. Today, instead of
the urgently needed inflow of resources to developing
countries to buttress their national economic
development plans, we are confronted with a net
outflow from them. Official development assistance
(ODA) showed a marked fall during 2006 and remains
well below the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national
product. It is primarily being used to finance debt
relief. That this is happening after so many years of
liberalization and globalization highlights our
collective failure. Perhaps we should be considering
mechanisms, such as an international debt commission,
to redress the problem of developing country debt.
The least developed countries, which are
particularly hard hit by rising energy costs, find
themselves in an even more difficult situation.
Enhanced and predictable resource flow to developing
countries remains a key objective of the global
partnership for development. India will continue to do
what it can to help with capacity-building in other
developing countries and to assist them through ODA
within the limits of its capacity. By the end of the year,
imports from least developed countries into India will
face a zero-tariff regime.
Early and substantive progress at the Doha Round
of trade negotiations, based on the primacy of the
development dimension, is another imperative. We
must return to the negotiating table with a redoubled
sense of urgency, while recognizing that adherence to
the existing mandate remains critical. Nor can the
interests of subsistence farmers be ignored or equated
with those of other sectors. An illogical linkage
between agriculture and non-agricultural market access
will only complicate the development impact of the
Round. The overarching principle of special and
differential treatment for developing countries remains
a categorical imperative.
As part of India's commitment to the
achievement of human rights for all, and as a member
of the Human Rights Council, we remain actively
involved in developing the institutional framework of
that body, including the universal periodic review
mechanism, based on effective international
cooperation as a central principle in the Council’s
methods of work. India will work towards developing
an international normative framework for the
promotion and protection of human rights. India is
honoured to be one of the first signatories of the
International Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Earlier today, I
also had the honour of depositing India’s instrument of
ratification of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
As the largest democracy in the world, India has
developed a system of local self-government with
democratically elected institutions of representative
Government at all levels the village, the district, the
State and the nation. The effort to make participatory
democracy more meaningful to every Indian citizen
underpins what is perhaps one of the greatest social
experiments in the world today, namely, the transfer of
decision-making power to nearly one million elected
women local Government representatives. As a result,
women are not merely the beneficiaries of change in
India, but are its instruments.
As the world’s largest democracy, it was also
natural for India to support the establishment of the
United Nations Democracy Fund. We made an initial
contribution of $10 million to the Fund and remain
actively and constructively involved in realizing the
objectives for which it was set up. As a small token of
our commitment to that laudable initiative, I have the
privilege of announcing a further pledge of $10 million
to the United Nations Democracy Fund.
The international system cannot be reordered
meaningfully without a comprehensive reform of the
United Nations. If the Organization is to remain the
cornerstone of the international architecture in this
century, it cannot remain mired in the realities of the
1940s. Despite substantive implementation of the
United Nations reform agenda that emerged from the
2005 World Summit Outcome, such reform will
inevitably remain incomplete without comprehensive
reform and expansion of the Security Council and
revitalization of the General Assembly. Elements and
ideas on the reform of the Security Council have been
discussed for well over a decade in numerous reports
and interminable consultations. It is now time for
intergovernmental negotiations to commence in order
to make the Security Council more democratic,
representative and responsive.
We, together with partners from Africa, Latin
America and Asia, tabled a resolution on 11 September
2007, spelling out the principles on which reform
ought to be based if it is to be meaningful. These
principles are expansion in both permanent and
non-permanent categories of membership; greater
representation for developing countries and
representation for developed countries that is reflective
of contemporary world realities; and comprehensive
improvement in the working methods of the Security
Council, including ensuring greater access for island
and small States. We welcome recent statements from
this podium by President Bush of the United States of
America and other world leaders on the need for
Security Council reform in both the permanent and
non-permanent categories. It is high time that we
collectively bring these ideas to implementation.
Reform of the United Nations would also be
incomplete without revitalization of the General
Assembly. The central goal of such revitalization must
be the restoration and enhancement of the role and
authority of the General Assembly as originally
envisaged in the Charter.
Given the significance of developmental
activities for the developing world, India sees a
corresponding need for the reform of United Nations
operational activities in favour of development. Since
these activities are aimed at supporting the work of
Member States, it follows that Members must
determine their direction and shape through an
intergovernmental process. The litmus test for any
reform proposal is whether it improves the support
extended by the United Nations to the efforts of
programme countries. India would therefore judge
reform proposals by their impact on the ground, by the
resultant improvement in the effectiveness of the
system and by the impact on transaction costs for the
United Nations development system.
Steps to achieve the complete elimination of
nuclear weapons have also only made limited headway.
Despite some progress, the world remains far from
achieving the objective of total elimination of nuclear
weapons. India’s long-standing commitment to
universal, non-discriminatory and comprehensive
nuclear disarmament is embodied in the vision of late
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for a nuclear-free and
non-violent world. This vision was put forward nearly
two decades ago. It remains undiminished today.
Indeed, it is all the more relevant today, given the
fact that peaceful uses of nuclear energy can address
the inexorably growing demand for new and
non-polluting sources of energy to fuel economic
development. We will be bringing proposals to
Member States and this Organization to see how we
can refocus on general and complete disarmament,
particularly nuclear disarmament. Disarmament is our
agreed goal, and it subsumes arms control and
non-proliferation.
It is well known that India has an impeccable
record in preventing the proliferation of sensitive
technologies. That is in keeping with our commitment
to being a responsible nuclear Power. India is ready to
work with the international community to develop a
new international consensus on non-proliferation. The
international community needs to intensify the effort to
address the very real threat posed by the link between
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) and related materials and technologies and
the ability of non-State actors to acquire them. The risk
posed by the intersection between proliferation and
terrorism is real and serious. The central objective must
be to ensure that our solidarity in words is translated
into action.
The adoption of the United Nations Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy last September was a
noteworthy development, signalling the will of the
international community to combat this menace in a
holistic and coordinated manner. Welcome as the
Strategy is, there is much more that needs to be done to
combat the menace that international terrorism has
become. India is convinced that without the early
adoption of a comprehensive convention against
international terrorism, the global struggle against
terrorism remains incomplete and likely to succeed
only partially. We must ensure that there is zero
tolerance for all forms of terrorism.
In conclusion, I would express the hope that our
deliberations in the year ahead will lead us to
enlightened action. With maturity and resolve we will
successfully overcome the many challenges before us.