India's foreign minister S Jaishankar referred to terrorism as one of the greatest risks to humanity and stated that over the past 20 years, the United Nations Security Council had developed a significant architecture, centred on the counter-terrorism sanctions system, to address this threat. This was particularly successful in alerting the nations that have made terrorism a "State-funded enterprise."
The sanctions regime has seen leaders of Pakistan based groups like Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) banned by the UN even though many others, some of whom are accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, have been shielded by China from similar action by the UN.
He said despite the UN action, the threat of terrorism was only growing and expanding, particularly in Asia and Africa. Jaishankar also announced that India will make a voluntary contribution of half a million dollars in the UN Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism this year. This will be used to assist UNOCT's efforts to help member states develop their ability to prevent and combat the threat of terrorism.
The minister warned about "non-State actors" abusing emerging technology like encrypted communications and crypto-currency and said that social media platforms have evolved into potent tools in terrorist organisations' "toolkits."
Jaishankar stated that the technological advancements of the last two decades have fundamentally changed how the world runs, and the newest and most promising technologies, such as virtual private networks, encrypted messaging services, blockchain, and virtual currencies, hold great promise for a variety of future economic and social advantages. Jaishankar was speaking at the UNOCT meet which was held in Mumbai and Delhi from October 28 and 29.
