In News
- PM Modi addressed the 52nd G7 Summit Outreach Session at Évian-les-Bains, France, marking India’s 8th consecutive G7 invitation.
India at G7 2026: Key Highlights
- India’s participation in the outreach sessions, despite not being a member state, underscores its growing role in shaping conversations on major international issues.
- PM Modi participated alongside Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, South Korea, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank in the session themed “Forging New Partnerships and Rebuilding International Solidarity.”
- PM Modi held bilateral meetings with the Presidents of UAE, Kenya, Egypt, and South Korea, and the Prime Minister of Japan, focusing on trade, investment, strategic partnerships, and people-to-people ties.
- PM Modi highlighted the significance of maritime security, noting that disruptions to trade through the Strait of Hormuz had affected the global economy and emphasised the collective responsibility of ensuring safe sea lanes and protecting seafarers.
- He highlighted India’s development cooperation in Africa covering capacity building, skill development, agriculture, water management, and energy — positioning India as a development partner, not a donor.
Significance of PM Modi’s Remarks
- Trust as strategic asset: Describing mutual trust as “the most important strategic asset of our time” reframes global diplomacy from transactional power politics to relationship-based multilateralism.
- Beyond donor-recipient: India’s call to replace the traditional aid framework with equality-based partnerships reflects the logic of its own South-South cooperation model.
- Multipolar order: The remarks reinforce India’s consistent advocacy for a multipolar, representative global governance architecture that reflects the actual distribution of economic power in the 21st century, not the post-1945 settlement.
Challenges to Rebuilding International Solidarity
- Geopolitical fractures: Russia-Ukraine conflict, US-Iran tensions, and Indo-Pacific rivalries have deepened great power divisions, making collective action on global public goods increasingly difficult.
- Economic fragmentation: Rising tariffs, export controls, and industrial subsidies are replacing the rules-based trading order with a geopolitically fragmented one.
- Climate finance gap: Developing nations consistently point to the gap between commitments and disbursements on climate finance; COP29 exposed this tension sharply, with developed nations offering far less than the USD 1 trillion annual target demanded.
- Governance reform stalled: Calls for reform of the UN Security Council, IMF quota restructuring, and World Bank governance remain blocked by vested interests by the US.
India’s Development Cooperation: Making the Case
- Africa: India has extended Lines of Credit exceeding USD 12 billion to 42 African nations; the India-Africa Forum Summit process has built a 60-year history of South-South solidarity.
- Digital Public Infrastructure: India’s DPI stack — Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker is being offered to developing nations through the Global DPI Repository as an alternative to expensive Western or Chinese digital infrastructure models.
- Energy transition: India’s International Solar Alliance, co-founded with France, now has around 120 member nations, positioning India as a genuine co-creator of the clean energy transition rather than a passive recipient of climate finance.
- Vaccine diplomacy: Vaccine Maitri during COVID-19 supplied 250 million doses to 100 countries, demonstrating India’s capacity to deliver on global solidarity commitments at scale.
What is G-7?
- The G7 (Group of Seven) is an informal organization of seven of the world’s largest advanced economies.
- These countries represent about 10% of the world’s population and nearly 30% of the global economy by GDP.
- Members: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States.
- The European Union also participates in G7 meetings but is not counted as one of the seven members.
- Background: The group began in 1975 as the G6 (France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US) in response to the oil crisis.
- Canada joined in 1976, creating the G7. Russia joined in 1998, forming the G8, but its membership was suspended in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea, returning the group to the G7.
- Although the G7 has no formal legislative power, its members represent a significant share of global economic output and often coordinate policies that influence international affairs and the world economy.
- Presidency: It is held each year by one of the seven States as a rotating presidency.
Source: TH
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