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With just a month left for the G20 Leaders’ Summit — September 9 to 10 — in New Delhi, India’s energies appear channelled towards the finale capping its efforts over the past months. The 18th G20 Heads of State and Government Summit in New Delhi, which U.S. President Joe Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, among others, are expected to attend, will be “a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil societies.”
In the backdrop of the recent communal tensions and violence in Gurugram, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said that it would like to see a “return to normalcy” as the National Capital Region prepares for the G20 summit for which the heads of governments of member countries have been invited.
While India, as G-20 President and host this year, has reasons to worry about domestic unrest, including in Manipur, that has sparked international concern, G-20 negotiators are concerned about agreeing on climate change issues ahead of the September leaders’ summit, after months of wrangling over language on Ukraine. “While differences over the reference to the Ukraine conflict have been the main reason no G-20 ministerial meeting thus far has issued a joint communique, the problems over common language on climate change will compound the challenge before negotiators, as India tries to avoid hosting the first G-20 presidency that fails to issue a “Leaders’ declaration,” writes Suhasini Haidar in this analysis.
China watch
China’s cyberspace watchdog has put forward plans to limit the usage of smartphones by children to no more than two hours a day and to require all tech companies to introduce a “minor mode” to enable restrictions. A draft “Guidelines for the Construction of Minor Mode of the Mobile Internet” is open for public comments until September 2, Ananth Krishnan reports.
In the neighbourhood
Bangladesh flag with Indian flag on a tree stump isolated | Photo Credit: Golden_Brown
“Bangladesh-India relation is not comparable to any other bilateral relation that Bangladesh has with other countries as our relation is written in blood,” Bangladesh’s Information Minister Hasan Mahmood tells Kallol Bhattacherjee, ahead of his India visit as part of the “Know BJP” initiative.
Sri Lanka plans to use a recent Indian grant of ₹ 75 crore to upgrade infrastructure in the education and health sectors catering to the historically-marginalised Malaiyaha Tamil community, living on tea estates. In an interview to The Hindu, subject minister Jeevan Thondaman outlined development plans.
Weeks before the presidential elections in the Maldives, the island nation’s Supreme Court barred former President Abdulla Yameen, known for his hardline anti-India stance, from contesting.
The Top Five
What we are reading – the best of The Hindu’s Opinion and Analysis.
- ‘Very optimistic’ about the Indian start-up sector’, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry Richard Burge tells Sriram Lakshman in an interview.
- Kohelet Policy Forum | On a mission to reshape Israel – G. Sampath writes about the think tank, founded by an Israeli-American who shifted from New York to the West Bank.
- The lessons of Hiroshima must not drift away, cautions Priyanjali Malik, author of India’s Nuclear Debate: Exceptionalism and the Bomb.
- America’s pursuit of Saudi-Israel rapprochement: The Biden administration’s diplomacy is taking place under challenging circumstances, but its global fallout could be quite profound, writes former diplomat Mahesh Sachdev.
- Coup in Niger: The Hindu editorial on the ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum, which it termed “a blow” to political stability in the nascent democracy.
