PM meets CMs, leaders on G-20 plans

■ MEA briefs on 200 sessions across India ■ Sherpas meet in Udaipur

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired an all-party meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan to solicit suggestions for the G-20 summit to be held in September next year under India’s presidency.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, Tamil Nadu CM

M.K. Stalin, BJP president J.P. Nadda, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D. Raja and Telugu Desam Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu were among those who attended the meeting.

From the government side, home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, defence minister Rajnath Singh and commerce minister Piyush Goyal were present. Sources said the MEA apprised the participants about the programmes planned by the government during India’s G-20 presidency that began on December 1 this year. About 200 meetings at various levels are being planned across the country in the run-up to the G-20 summit.

Some Opposition leaders, including Sitaram Yechury and D. Raja of the Left, noted that India taking over the presidency was by rotation and said it should not be projected as the government’s achievement, sources said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, also thanked various world leaders on Twitter, including US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida for their tweets supporting India’s G-20 presidency.

The G-20, or Group of Twenty, is an “intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed

and developing economies and comprises 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UK, USA) and the European Union (EU)”.

Deliberations began on Monday at Rajasthan’s picturesque Udaipur city at the first G-20 sherpa meeting under India’s presidency. The MEA said: “Today, 5 December, marked the beginning of the substantive discussions on five key focus areas of India’s G-20 presidency. In addition to the first two sessions on ‘Technological Transformation’ and ‘Green Development and Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE)’, a dialogue on ‘Global & Regional Economy: Prospects & Challenges’ and an informal ‘Chai pe Charcha’ among G-20 member countries was also held.”

The external affairs ministry added: “Discussions of the 1st Sherpa Meeting were initiated by India’s G-20 Sherpa Mr Amitabh Kant, through an overview of India’s G-20 priorities across our 13 Working Groups. The Sherpa highlighted India’s role in providing a greater voice to the Global South, and utilising its G-20 chairship to forge win-win collaborations between developing countries and advanced economies.”