TRANSCRIPT
World leaders have been arriving in New Delhi for the eighteenth G20 summit - and many locals are delighted:
Man: “After G20, we will get more tourism in India, that’s why it’s good for us.”]]
Woman: "I mean it's a great privilege and opportunity for India to host this G20. And as we can see, the preparations that are going on; one thing that is really a benefit of this is that we are cleaning our city."
Extra attention is being paid, from the roads, to the statues and footpaths.
Geeta Seshamani, co-founder of an Animal Shelter, says stray dogs have been rounded up…
“They have decided that both for security reasons and for perhaps maybe prestige of the country, they, along the route in the very G20 sensitive areas, they do not want the street dogs to be around.”
And Slum areas are being demolished – though the government insists it’s not part of beautification work ahead of the summit – rather an ongoing activity to remove houses built illegally on government land.
Almost 130,000 security personnel will guard the capital throughout the event, and Delhi's Special Commissioner of Police, Dependra Pathak says a state-of-the-art control and command centre will be monitoring 24/7 – thanks to 450 integrated cameras.
"Maintaining law and order and crime criminal containment in the entire Delhi, it’s certainly and particularly during the summit time, it’s a big challenge.”
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reminded ASEAN leaders of the G20’s theme before leaving Jakarta:
“One earth, one family, one future.”
Sagarika Ghose is a political analyst:
“So he's positioning himself as a global statesman, positioning himself as a global thought leader, the leader of the global South..Internationally there I think we're looking at a more complicated picture…there are rising concerns about human rights. There are rising concerns about majoritarianism.”
Mr Modi says Asia is assuming a central position in the world.
"The 21st century is the century of Asia. It is for everyone. It is quintessential to develop a rules based post-COVID world order for the betterment of humanity. All of us have a shared interest for the progress of free or open Indo-Pacific region, and to embolden the voice of the global south. I trust that new resolutions will be taken up for a glorious future of India and ASEAN nations. India will work shoulder to shoulder with all the countries here.”
This will be a test of India’s global leadership.
Prime Minister Modi faces a significant challenge in unifying G20 members, particularly when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
RIchard Rossow, Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Mr Modi is in a unique position.
"When an endgame starts to come together, Prime Minister Modi is one of the few that can speak to all the world leaders that are basically going to have to agree to the outline of what an agreement looks like when when we're ready to finally end this thing. So, so maybe we'll look at this and hope that India holding its powder dry on Russia and having good relations still with President Biden and others can actually have some utility there. So, they'll push, they'll try to get something tougher, maybe without Putin there, they'll be able to do it. But I think India is still going to want to maintain a decent relationship with Moscow. And let's hope that helps us all."
The looming question – will they come to a consensus and release a joint leaders’ declaration?
Or, will it be the first G20 leaders’ summit in history to end without one.
