Raisina Dialogue: External Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday took part in a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics. Speaking during the conference, the External Affairs Minister gave a witty response to the question of India's permanent membership at the United Nations Security Council, saying that it should be left to BCCI.
Jaishankar's response came after the Executive Director of Australia’s Lowy Institute, Michael Fullilove, said that UNSC membership can be based on ICC Test rankings.
Earlier on Thursday, Jaishankar said that the "short-sighted" approach of the five permanent members of the UNSC is holding back forward movement in the long-pending reform of the global body. In a session at the Raisina Dialogue, he said the "biggest" opponent for reform of the UN Security Council is not a Western country, in remarks seen as an oblique reference to China, as reported by PTI.
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The EAM said the sentiments for changes in the UN system is "very strong, but the challenge has been to get the concurrence for it from certain quarters". Russia, the UK, China, France, and the US are the five permanent members of the UNSC, and these countries can veto any substantive resolution.
There has been a demand to increase the number of permanent members. "When the UN was invented, it had approximately 50 members. We have four times the members. So it is a common sense proposition that you can't continue the same way when you have four times the members," Jaishankar said, as quoted by PTI.