G7 Summit 2015, India's Role.
G-7, an international grouping of highly developed countries like, U.S.A, U.K. Germany, France etc. has conducted its annual meeting of 2015 recently in Germany. After the suspension of Russia from the erstwhile G-8 group, the resulted G-7 has lost its global appeal. Its member countries are now belong only to western block, and they try to control the economic and trade policies of whole world.
The agenda of recent summit was multifaceted. The issues from various areas like Terrorism, Climate Change, European Economic crisis etc. were discussed comprehensively. Group had also mulled on the various possible solutions to control the extremist groups like Islamic State, Boko-haram, and also to resolve the crisis of Yemen. G-7, since its inception in 1975, has been strongly setting up the guidelines for International politics. It has been playing significant role in manipulating the geo-political scenarios of both developed and developing world. However, with the emergence of new economic powers like China, India etc. the developed countries in today's world are paying much attention towards developing countries. This has made G-7 to restructure its policies.
India has been playing a significant role in influencing G-7's agenda. Being world's one of the fastest economies, India has earned global respect and more geo-political role in world politics.
India's foreign policy is based on Non-alignment and to work for more peaceful world. In this respect, India has maintained equal distance from all super power of today's 'Multi-polar' world. It is leading the group of all other developing and least developing countries. It is strongly raising voice against the discriminatory policies of developed countries.
Climate change is one such issue in which India is defending the rights of developing world. It has raised concerns in various international platforms including G-7 group. The G-7 countries are imposing various sanctions on developing countries to control the climate change. However, these developed countries themselves are not willing to slow down their environment pollution activities.
Therefore, India has strongly criticized their discriminatory agendas. India has alleged that the developed countries are aiming to slow down the economic growth of developing world.
Many G-7 countries like U.S.A, U.K and France holds permanent seat in United Nations Security Council. This gives them a discretionary power to block motions related to the interest of developing countries. In this regards, India has raised voice for the reform of U.N. It is advocating for more democratization and global representation of international institutions like U.N, World Bank, I.M.F etc.
Energy is a basic requirement for the development. The rise of price of conventional fuels like petroleum, has forced the poor countries to adopt non-conventional source of energies like Nuclear, Solar, Wind etc. But, they don't have sufficient technology to harness them. So, they need help of developed countries to share the technology and expertise with them. However, the developed countries including G-7 are not willing to share the knowledge. Moreover, they have imposed various discriminatory nuclear policies like NPT, CTBT etc. to restrict the poor countries from gaining nuclear energy.
In this regards, India has rejected the discriminatory policies by not signing the NPT, CTBT etc. It has strongly advocated the need of nuclear energy for the poor developing nation. As a result, now many countries including U.S.A, Australia etc., are signing the Civil Nuclear Agreement with India. This has given opportunities for other developing countries to negotiate with developed ones for the access of nuclear energy.
Conclusion
Therefore, India has a very vital role in today's International politics. Though it is not a member of some global groups like G-7, but it has strongly influenced them. India is progressing to become next super power but not by following the path of colonial world, but by protecting and preserving the rights of poor countries. India's pursuit of inclusive and sustainable global development will make it a globally accepted super power of 21st century.
Ajeet Singh
