Terrorism, threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and climate change are the critical challenges that confront us today, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said here on Wednesday.
“Today, no country, big or small, is immune from this existential threat, particularly, terrorism actively supported and sponsored by states. In this digital age, the challenge is even greater, with a greater vulnerability to radicalisation,” Ms. Swaraj said at the Raisina Dialogue jointly organised by the Observer Research Foundation and the External Affairs Ministry.
She said that as far back as 1996, India proposed a draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN, but it remained a draft because of a lack of consensus on a common definition.
Further drawing attention to the threat of climate change, Ms. Swaraj said, “Developing and under-developed nations are the worst victims of climate change, with neither the capacity nor the resources to meet the crisis.”
“We have risen to meet the challenge,” she said referring to the International Solar Alliance India jointly launched with France last year with the participation of 120 countries. Talking of India’s global engagement in the past four-and-a-half years, Ms. Swaraj highlighted five elements with the first being rebuilding bridges with India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood.
Stating that India had devoted a much higher level of resources and attention to its neighbourhood, Ms. Swaraj added, “Our revitalised Act East and Think West paradigms have further broadened the reach of our strategic and economic ‘neighbourhood’.”
Rules-based order
“India therefore stands for a democratic and rules-based international order, in which all nations thrive as equals,” she said.
Another aspect she said was that India is building sustainable development partnerships that stretched from the Indian Ocean and Pacific Islands to the Caribbean, and from Africa to the Americas, and have expanded “both in geographical reach and sectoral coverage”.
“Note that we refer to these as partnerships, and not assistance,” she said.
Ms. Swaraj said global disruptions and ensuing complexities were ongoing phenomena and the crucial question is how do we respond to these transitions.
On this she stated that India’s engagement with the world is rooted in its civilisational ethos and while the prosperity of Indians, both at home and abroad, and security of our citizens are of paramount importance, Ms. Swaraj said, “Self-interest alone does not propel us.”
