May I first congratulate you,
Sir, on your election as President of the Assembly at its
sixty-third session. I am sure that your wisdom and
vast experience will guide us as we deliberate the many
challenges that the world faces today.
The United Nations is the embodiment of our
faith in the benefits of collective action and of
multilateral approaches in resolving global issues. At
the 2005 World Summit we pledged ourselves to an
agenda for early and meaningful reform of the United
Nations. However, we must acknowledge frankly that
there has been little progress on the core elements of
the reform agenda.
We need to make more determined efforts to
revitalize the General Assembly to enable it to fulfil its
rightful role as the principal deliberative organ of the
United Nations system. The composition of the
Security Council needs to change to reflect
contemporary realities of the twenty-first century. Only
a truly representative and revitalized United Nations
can become the effective focal point for the
cooperative efforts of the world community. We need
to expeditiously hold negotiations towards this end.
Globalization has contributed to ever-widening
circles of prosperity, and we in India have also
benefited from it. But its benefits have not been
equitably distributed. Ensuring inclusive growth within
nations, and inclusive globalization across nations, is a
central challenge facing us all.
The development gains that many countries have
made are today threatened by a possible food crisis, a
global energy crisis and, most recently, unprecedented
upheavals in international financial markets.
The net impact of these problems is that both the
industrialized economies and the developing
economies face inflation and a slowdown in growth
after several years of robust expansion. Industrialized
countries can afford periods of slow growth.
Developing countries cannot. There is therefore an
urgent need for coordinated action by the global
community on several fronts.
The explosion of financial innovation
unaccompanied by credible systemic regulation has
made the financial system vulnerable. The resulting
crisis of confidence threatens global prosperity in the
increasingly interdependent world in which we all live.
There is, therefore, a need for a new international
initiative to bring structural reform in the world’s
financial system, with more effective regulation and
9 08-52265
stronger systems of multilateral consultations and
surveillance. This must be designed in as inclusive a
manner as possible.
The world food crisis is the cumulative
consequence of the neglect of agriculture in the
developing world, exacerbated by distortionary
agricultural subsidies in the developed world.
Diversion of cultivable land for producing biofuels is
compounding the problem.
The world needs a second green revolution to
address the problem of food security. We need new
technologies, new institutional responses and above all
a global compact to ensure food and livelihood
security. This will require transfer of technology and
innovation from developed to developing countries.
India is very keen to expand cooperation with Africa in
Africa’s quest for food and livelihood security for its
people.
Trade liberalization in agriculture can help,
provided it adequately takes into account the livelihood
concerns of poor and vulnerable farmers in the
developing and least developed countries.
It is feared that many of the conflicts of the
twenty-first century will be over water. We must
therefore reflect on how to use this scarce resource
most efficiently. We need to invest in new technologies
and new production regimes for rain-fed and dryland
agriculture and explore cost-effective desalination
technologies.
Poverty, ignorance and disease still afflict
millions and millions of people. The commitment to
achieve the ambitious targets set as part of the
Millennium Development Goals was an
acknowledgement by the international community that
global prosperity and welfare are indivisible and that
affluence cannot coexist with pervasive poverty.
Unfortunately, solemn commitments made for the
transfer of financial resources from the developed to
the developing world have remained largely
unfulfilled. The commitment of developed countries to
move to the target set long ago of 0.7 per cent of gross
national income as official development assistance
needs to be honoured as a matter of priority. In this
context, special efforts have to be made to address the
concerns of Africa for adequate resource flows to
support its development.
Poverty alleviation and livelihood security are
closely linked to energy security. We need a much
greater measure of predictability and stability in the oil
and gas markets. We need to think of ways and means,
such as early warning mechanisms, to help countries
cope with oil shocks.
We must put in place a global cooperative
network of institutions of developed and developing
countries engaged in research and development in
energy efficiency, clean energy technologies, and
renewable sources of energy.
India is registering rapid economic growth, and
has combined it with declining energy intensity of its
economy. However, our total demand will keep
increasing, and we are actively looking for all possible
sources of clean energy.
The opening of international civil nuclear
cooperation with India will have a positive impact on
global energy security and on the efforts to combat
climate change. This is a vindication of India’s
impeccable record on non-proliferation and testifies to
our long-standing commitment to nuclear disarmament
that is global, universal and non-discriminatory in
nature. The blueprint for this was spelled out by Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi in this very Assembly 20 years
ago.
I reiterate India’s proposal for a nuclear weapons
convention prohibiting the development, production,
stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and providing
for their complete elimination within a specified time
frame.
Climate change can be overcome successfully
only through a collaborative and cooperative global
effort.
We support the multilateral negotiations now
taking place under the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. The outcome must be
fair and equitable and recognize the principle that each
citizen of the world has equal entitlement to the global
atmospheric space.
I believe that the pursuit of ecologically
sustainable development need not be in contradiction
to achieving our growth objectives. As Mahatma
Gandhi once said, “The earth has enough resources to
meet people’s needs, but will never have enough to
satisfy people’s greed.”
08-52265 10
India has unveiled an ambitious national action
plan on climate change. Even as we pursue economic
growth, we are committed to our per capita emissions
of greenhouse gases not exceeding those of the
developed countries.
The growing assertion of separate identities and
ethnic, cultural and religious intolerance threaten our
developmental efforts and our peace and stability. It is
vital that we strengthen international cooperation to
combat terrorism and to bring the perpetrators,
organizers, financers and sponsors of terrorism to
justice. We should conclude expeditiously the draft
comprehensive convention on international terrorism.
In this context, the situation in Afghanistan is a
matter of deep concern. The international community
must pool all its resources to ensure the success of
Afghanistan’s reconstruction efforts and its emergence
as a moderate, pluralistic and democratic society.
We welcome the return of democracy in Pakistan.
We are committed to resolving all outstanding issues
between India and Pakistan, including the issue of
Jammu and Kashmir, through peaceful dialogue.
We also welcome the coming to power of
democratically elected Governments in Nepal and
Bhutan. We seek to expand areas of cooperation with
all these countries to deal with the challenges of
sustainable development and poverty eradication.
The United Nations is a living symbol of
pluralism. It has weathered many storms. It is the
vehicle through which our combined will and efforts to
address global challenges must be articulated and
implemented. Unless we rise to the task, we will
bequeath to succeeding generations a world of
diminishing prospects.