With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi all set to participate at the G7 outreach summit over the weekend virtually, UK has told India that his presence at the meet will be “seamless”. UK has invited India for the G7 meet, but PM Modi could not attend it physically due to the 2nd wave of devastating Covid pandemic.
WION learnt that UK has conveyed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson “understands & supports” PM Modi’s decision and “will make all efforts to ensure his participation at the summit seamless” as if “he were actually in the room”. It was on 11th May that New Delhi announced PM Modi won’t be participating in the meet in person.
PM Modi will be speaking at 3 sessions on Saturday and Sunday (12th and 13th June) which are themed–Building Back Stronger, Building Back Together, and Building Back Greener.
UK as the chair of the G7 this year had invited India, along with Australia, South Korea and South Africa.
This is the 7th time UK is leading the G7 and the theme is ‘Build Back Better”. London has outlined 4 priority areas during the meet, which include global recovery from Covid, trade, climate change, and “Championing shared values and open societies”.
India took part in G7 meetings that took place earlier this year. Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan took part in the G7 health minister meet on June 4. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar took part in G7 ministerial meet on May 21. IT minister took part in such a meeting on April 29. Moreover, India’s Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal represenrted India at G7 Economic Resilience Panel as an observer.
India has been in the past invited to G7 outreach summits. India was first to be invited for the G7 outreach summit in 2003 when the then Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Invited by France. From 2005 to 2009, India has been invited annually to the G7 outreach summit with PM Manmohan Singh representing India.
India has been receiving invite for G7 since 2019 consecutively. In 2019, PM Modi had participated in G7 Biarritz Summit chaired by France
In 2020, President Donald Trump had invited PM Modi for the G7 outreach summit at Camp David. The summit was to take place in June 2020 but it could not take place due to the Covid pandemic.
