The two-day G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, where key world leaders pondered over contemporary global challenges, concluded just before we closed this edition and we created a rich package on the all-important meet. It begins with a front- page report on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the summit in which he gave a clarion call for a ‘new world order’. The historic address encompassed a range of issues, including Russia-Ukraine conflict, global warming, supply-chain glitches, food and energy crises, fertiliser scarcity and the failure of multilateral bodies. The underlying theme was “a strong message of peace to the world,” which India will convey during its upcoming presidency of the global forum.
Having traversed a turbulent geopolitical scenario, Indonesia’s G20 presidency culminated on a positive note with the leaders of the world’s largest economies speaking in one voice on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The joint Declaration brought out at the end of the Bali Summit forms part of our G20 package on the Centrespread.
Besides highlighting the salient features of the Declaration, our report puts them in proper perspective. Indonesia presidency’s real achievement, according to our report, is the fact that for the first time, a clear relationship between security issues and the global economy has been established, and agreed upon. It is a colossal achievement, emphasises our report. The page also carries two exclusive write-ups by top domain experts – one on the economic vision and the other on the geopolitics and strategic vision of G20 under India’s upcoming presidency.
The G20 coverage is enriched with our regular ‘Podium’ feature. A wellresearched report on this page calls out the stark contrast in representations of African and European continents in the premier grouping. Africa’s under-representation, says our report, is borne out by the fact that despite being the second largest and the second most populous continent, it has only seat whereas Europe is represented by four countries besides having one permanent guest-Spain. Arguing why South Africa on its own cannot effectively represent a continent as large and diverse as Africa, the report advocates that during its presidency India can push for a more inclusive G20.
Befitting its ‘Rising India’ tag, the Back Page carries a report by reputed global agency Morgan Stanley, which says the only glimmer of hope in a galaxy full of despair is the India Story. Painting an upbeat scenario, the report says that India is well on track to becoming the world’s third largest economy by 2027, surpassing Japan and Germany. Among our other special offerings this week, one is a special package on Justice DY Chandrachud, who took oath as the 50th Chief Justice of India on November 9.
While the top report by a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court focuses on some key judgments of the new CJI and elaborates on his special knack of writing these in a lucid language, the second is a profile piece. There is another special page with data-driven reports on India emerging as a major supplier of foodgrain to the world.
Relish the package!
