India will be hosting the voice of the Global South summit on the 12th and 13th. This is a virtual summit in picture. About 120 countries have been invited. So what is the Global South? What are its issues and why is this virtual summit initiative being taken by India? The Global South is largely the developing world, the world that has largely under represented APS, the international global powerful platforms. For instance, the G 20 are, and this is an opportune time. India believes that it is hosting this a voice of the global South summit, because the ideas and the views from the global south will be carried forward by India at the G eight platform. That's the idea of the summit. This is because India is in a unique position at this juncture. India holds the presidency of the G 20 this year and will be hosting the summit for the world leaders in September. This year at the G 20 is a platform of the 20 biggest economies of the world, which includes 19 countries and the European Union, and therefore it is on these for a that these developing countries are not represented. So India believes that it can be, as the developing countries says, a voice for all these countries. So the idea, the theme offer the Voice of Global South Summit is unity of voice, unity of purpose. The countries that are not part of G 20 will share the views with India. India were take forward these views to the G 20 platform. What are the issues now? Let's discuss that of the global South and the current issues that can be taken up in the G 21st of all, the Ukraine war has impacted the global South much more are that perhaps the rest of the world even, for instance, the A, you know, if it has been facing a lot of problems as far as energy is concerned, patter a lot of other issues of which were are occasion of the war in Ukraine were impacting countries in Africa, for instance, the food crisis, as you know because of the Ukraine crisis of wheat, was unable to move out off the out of Ukraine, was lying in the silos er and could not be moved by the Black Sea. This resulted in a severe crisis of food are especially for the African continent. And that was the time that there was a global call that this needs to be mitigated and actor accorded or needs to be created for the movement of specifically wheat. Considering that this is the bread basket of the world and a large amount of wheat that is produced and exported out of Ukraine was being held up, this is just one of the problems the energy crisis emanating from this has also been felt across the world and more acutely, of course, by the developing countries. The one of the reasons why India has been placing an argument on being on on continuing to procure oil from Russia was on the grounds that unilateral sanctions in the past er, for instance by the United States against Iran's say hand resulted in countries like India not being able to import oil from Iran are India's. India's avenues of getting energy were being reduced from Iran to Venezuela all under sanctions. India can procure oil from death, so what auctions is a developing country left with is what India argued, that they need to have affordable prices for fuel in a country that consumes energy on consumes energy very very march, however, where the average income may not be that high, so afford abilities of very important factor year. This is the same crisis that many other countries have felt as well. So food crisis, fuel crisis as well as fertiliser crisis which were all a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine. So one aspect of discussion will be that, apart from that the covert 19 pandemic to had hater the developing world much more than many other parts of the world. And we have also seen that there was a time when a van scenes we're not being able to reach the African continent as well. There was this issue that was taken up by the UN The US secretary general had said that there needs to be an equitable a distribution of vaccines to fight a global of crisis, a pandemic which requires a concerted effort and equitable distribution of medical resources, which clearly included something as important as backs this kind of discrimination, all sorts that is felt by the global South. That voice needs to be put forth on global platforms where there are richer, more powerful countries and India's hoping that it can eventually be that voice. And that is why India has in fact off this a a unique initiative, as the foreign secretary put it in a Quadra of holding a global South summit. Apart from these two critical factors, another important aspect that is impacting already the global south of developing world is climate crisis, the climate crisis. Historically, the emissions have been much higher by the industrialised world by the richer nations. So the fight right now is for climate justice. That is climate finance and the developed countries have fallen short of the promises that they have made. This is also going to be an important aspects apart from that use of technology for global good of humanity. India's already said that it is one of the aspects that India will raise at the G 20 would want to raise during its presidency. It is for these reasons that India believes that it can provide a voice to these the developing countries, and that is why a dis a virtual summit is being held. This will be divided into several sessions. Are there'll be an inaugural session which will be led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We're expecting the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, to virtually participate, as well as the president of Sri Lanka, Ranil Vikram Singh. Apart from that, there will be several ministerial sessions from finance to environments, climate to education and the ideas emanating of all these ministerial sessions will then Dick elated together and will then be projected at the G 20. That's the idea. There were questions raised about whether the number of countries that are participating in this virtual some it is pretty much similar are to Nam and then why has in India given that kind of a a weight ege to the Non Aligned Movement. So what the phone and secretary responded to this was that by holding a virtual summit of a voice of the global South, in no way means that less importance is being given to other fora or other platforms. Similar platforms, however, at the summit is going to take place over two days and the entire sum it will be virtual in nature
