The Group of Seven Summit (G7) kicked off yesterday in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The virtual summit, hosted by the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that the leaders of the world’s most advanced economies have gathered.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually participate in the G7 summit’s outreach sessions on June 12 and June 13. The UK, as the chair of G7, has invited India, Australia, South Africa, and South Korea to the summit. The theme for this year is ‘Build Back Better’ and will involve discussion on global covid recovery, climate change, championing shared values and open societies, and trade.
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Due to the dire COVID-19 situation in India, PM Modi had to call off his in-person visit to the Cornish Coast, Britain. According to the reports, the G7 summit at Cornwall will focus on a new probe into the novel coronavirus’ origin and the leaders will pledge one billion doses of vaccines for nations across the globe. India offered its support to a follow-up inquiry by the World Health Organization (WHO) for a transparent and new investigation regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the governance of Narendra Modi, this is the third consecutive time that India is being invited to the G7 summit. The summit chaired by France in 2019 was the first time PM Modi was invited to the summit, which was followed by Donald Trump’s invitation in 2020. Before this India had received the invitation in 2003 under the leadership of Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and in 2005-2009 under the leadership of Former PM Manmohan Singh.
India is at the brink of strengthening its global footprint with the QUAD initiative and the G7 summit in the picture. Recently, Russia and China criticized the QUAD by tagging them as “Asian NATO”. The nations claim that the QUAD is an attempt to subdue Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific Region.
