New York: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here Sunday night to participate in the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly after delivering an electrifying address in Houston to over 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora at a mega community event also addressed by President Donald Trump.
Modi arrived at the J F K International Airport after 10 pm Sunday night and has a packed bilateral and multi-lateral agenda over the next five days, including nine key speeches at high-level summits and plurilateral engagements during the UN General Assembly session and on its sidelines.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin has said that the country’s engagement and outreach at the 74th UN General Assembly will be unprecedented and will result in concrete, tangible, action-oriented outcomes.
A total of over 75 Heads of State and Foreign Ministers will be meeting with Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan during the week across various platforms.
Modi’s day Monday will begin with the high-level Climate Action Summit hosted by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in the UN General Assembly chamber.
Modi is among the first set of speakers to address the summit, along with Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, President of Marshall Islands Hilda Heine and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Over 63 countries have been invited to speak at the Summit, which will demonstrate solutions by governments, the private sector and civil society to reduce emissions and build climate resilience and adaptation.
Immediately after this session, Modi will address the first-ever High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage, which will launch new efforts to provide access for all to affordable, inclusive and resilient health systems.
Later in the day, Modi will address the ‘Leaders’ Dialogue on Strategic Responses to Terrorist and Violent Extremist Narratives’, organized by a group of countries, along with the UN Secretariat, which deals with the Office of Counterterrorism.
The meeting is led by King of Jordan Abdullah II, President of France Emmanuel Macron and Ardern.
September 24, India will be highlighting a new feature of its approach at the UN through the plurilateral ‘India-Pacific Islands Leaders’ Meeting. India and the Pacific nations have met under the Forum for India-Pacific Islands cooperation (FIPIC), first in Fiji in 2014 and then in Jaipur in 2015.
Leaders of Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu will attend this high-level meet.
Modi has been invited by Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies Founder Michael Bloomberg to deliver the keynote address at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in the morning of September 25.
Following this, there will be a large number of interactions with CEOs. Later in the afternoon, India will engage with the CARICOM group of countries at the first leaders’ level summit expected to last about two hours.
Leaders from Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago will attend this summit.
Modi will have several bilateral meetings during his visit and will address the General Debate on September 27. He could have a bilateral meeting with Trump between September 23 and 25th.
Jaishankar too has a packed schedule of meetings and engagements and he will participate in the BRICS, G4 and SAARC Foreign Ministers meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly session.
Muraleedharan will engage with the countries of the NAM, the Group of 77, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures (CICA), Commonwealth and SAMOA Pathway.
PTI
