PM Modi to take part in NAM meeting on Covid-19 today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the virtual summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Monday, for the first time since taking the helm of affairs in India, to discuss ways to fight the coronavirus pandemic together.
Reports said the meeting will take place at around 4.30pm India time and will also be attended by external affairs minister S Jaishankar.
This will be the first time Modi will take part in a NAM meeting since becoming the Prime minister in 2014. Modi became the first full-time Indian prime minister to skip the NAM summit in 2016 and again in 2019.
India was represented by the vice president in the last two summits in 2016 in Venezuela and 2019 in Azerbaijan. Manmohan Singh had participated at the Tehran NAM meet in 2012.
Azerbaijan is the president of the grouping till 2022 and the meet is being organised under the leadership of its president Ilham Aliyev.
Other blocs like G20, BRICS and regional groupings like SAARC have also held video conferences to discuss a coordinated approach to tackle the coronavirus disease, which has affected more than 3.5 million people across the world and killed 274,431.
NAM represents the biggest grouping of countries outside the United Nations and has 120 developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America under its fold.HT
