While PM Modi will travel to New York this month, he won’t address the UNGA session and allow foreign minister S Jaishankar to speak for India at the annual debate. Jaishankar instead will address the General Assembly on Sept 28.
Modi, however, will address UN’s high-level Summit of the Future, which aims to explore ways of achieving a better future in the face of global upheaval and conflict, and participate in the Quad summit on Sept 21.
Interestingly, the venue for the summit will likely be Delaware, and not UNGA in New York as was previously thought, with US President Joe Biden playing the host. Biden and Modi will be joined by Australian and Japanese PMs, Anthony Albanese and Fumio Kishida respectively, for the summit in Delaware’s Wilmington, Biden’s hometown.
It was India’s turn to host the summit this year but with outgoing President Biden now taking over the role of host this year, India will host the summit in 2025, government sources said. The US was earlier supposed to host the summit in 2025. The development will allow India to host the summit at home and not on foreign soil.
India had proposed that the much delayed summit it had to host this year be held on the sidelines of the upcoming UNGA session. Biden, however, was keen on having the summit in Delaware. This will be the last Quad summit for both Biden and Kishida as they prepare to demit office. India had also considered having the summit on the margins of the G7 summit in Italy this year but Australia wasn’t invited for the meeting. The Indian government had first proposed hosting the summit on the margins of the Republic Day celebrations in January, for which Biden was invited as chief guest, but the president declined the invitation citing scheduling issues. Modi will be in New York to address a community event on September 22 at the 16,000-seater Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Long Island. He will also address the UN's landmark 'Summit of the Future' that is being convened at the global body's headquarters on September 22 and 23. The PM is also expected to have several bilateral meetings at the UN including one possibly with Bangladesh chief advisor Muhammad Yunus, who has sought a meeting with Modi in New York.
