PM Modi Attends G7 Summit In Italy, Russia, AI, Migration, Gaza Top Agenda | CNBC TV18

Hello and welcome to GLOBAL EYE. I'm Parikshit Lutra. The first major G7 summit agenda reached its desired end in Italy. The nations have agreed on an outline deal to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine. This will be done using interest from Russian assets frozen after Moscow's invasion of its neighbor in 2022. U.S. President Biden said that Ukraine will be provided with five Patriot missile defense systems, he said. And I quote, everything we have is going to Ukraine until its needs are met, end of court. The leaders also shared a light moment as they attended a skydiving demonstration program in a golf course. The Gaza conflict, artificial intelligence, Africa are some of the other important items on the agenda. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also arrived in Italy. He's scheduled to hold crucial bilateral meetings with G7 leaders over the next few days. It is expected that the Indian delegation will bring up key issues faced by the Global South. This is Modis first foreign trip since he took charge as Indias Prime Minister for the third time. Let me now go across to former Foreign Secretary Kaval Sibal. We are also joined by strategic affairs expert Brahma Chelani and Ambassador Rakesh Sood, former ambassador to France. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us on the program. Ambassador Sibal, if I can begin with you, what do you think is the importance for India when it comes to the G7 summit? This is also the prime ministers first overseas visit. What is the development agenda that we would like to take back or probably have a victory for during the summit? Well, a couple of things. The first time we were invited to AG Seven meeting was by France when I was ambassador here many, many years ago. And since then our Prime Minister has been attending the G7 meeting. So it's nothing new. We are experienced in this regard. Our leadership is experienced. We know what their agenda is now of course with the war in Ukraine and war in Gaza is very difficult for the G7 to have a positive forward-looking, constructive, peace loving agenda frankly, because whatever they are doing in Ukraine especially is going to have is having great repercussions on the global financial system. This decision to confiscate or to freeze 50 billion no $350 billion of Russian central bank assets, which are largely in Belgium and use interest on these $5 billion a year to pay off the loan. That loan payment by Ukraine for $50 billion A to them is outright, outrightly against international law. In fact, the president of the of Central Bank of Europe, European Central Bank, Christian Lagarde has said this is illegal and President Putin has said that this action will not go unpunished. In fact, this is going to impose a very big blow to the sanctity of the global financial system and will have long term repercussions. So G7 is actually in a war mongering mode, is not in the peace mongering mode at all. And Prime Minister Modi will certainly take on pursue the agenda that he pursued at the G20 to to sensitize them on the problems that S is facing and which are not going to be resolved or addressed if this is the path down which the G7 want to. The G7 actually lost its usefulness and its relevance to a great degree after the financial crisis of 2008. And that's how the G20 was raised to the summit level. But now E7 continues down this path and takes more and more, which are at various with international law and do not actually have a perspective of peace in Ukraine as it is in Gaza. I'm afraid the task of our Prime Minister in Italy is going to be very difficult to persuade them to change their course. It's going to be tough, right? Yes, especially when they want to penalize Russia. They want to punish Russia and hold them accountable. Brahma Chelani, if I can get you in. At this stage, the Prime Minister had a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky as well. Do you think that in the third term Prime Minister stand on Russia, Ukraine war is going to change or will be one of continuity and status quo? Why would it change? India has been pursuing an independent approach to international affairs. Ukraine war is just one example of India's independence and neutrality. Why would it change? Because that would militate against Indian interests. Even if there had been another party in office in New Delhi, India's stance on the Ukraine war would not have been different. The fact is that the G7 member states share of the global GDP has been on the decline. As the economic strength declines, the global influence diminishes and the relevance of the G7 itself is being questioned in the West. And to make matters worse, the G7 leaders, other than Italy's Maloney pays winning support at home. Sonak is likely to be gone in three weeks once British elections are over. Microns future will be decided on June 30th. Trudeau after eight years in power, has become increasingly controversial and based in autumn and Biden stays at possible defeat in November. The only leaders of the T7 summit that are strong at home are Maloney and Modi. In a way it's because of the changing world, the change balance of power that I'm Sir Maloney invited to the summit prominent non western figures including the leaders of India, Brazil, Turkey and the UE. She also invited Zaleski and the Pope, who to Zalenski's chagrin has been calling for a ceasefire. Ceasefire has become imperative and the Pope can play the role of an honest broker. Unfortunately, what the G7 summit is highlighting is America's and the West building involvement in the Ukraine war. The two important decisions from this summit, one America's 10 year security agreement with with Ukraine and the other is a $50 billion loan to Ukraine that will be repaid with stolen interest generated on the frozen Russian central bank assets. So both the steps are not exactly conducive to the Wests own long term interests, right. Mr. Jelani, I think we are having some issue with your line as well. Your video had frozen for a second on the program. I'll request you to log off and login. Let me now also go across to Ambassador Rakesh Sood. At this point, Ambassador Sood now keeping in mind the development agenda that Prime Minister Modi has in his third term, what would we like to take away or what is the message that we would like to deliver at the G7? I think Prime Minister Modi would like to focus on some of the achievements of the G20 summit that was hosted by India last year. And among those, one of the key issues would be the global digital infrastructure. That was a major point of focus and AI, which is part of the global digital infrastructure, is one of the items on the agenda of the G7. Now, frankly, I am not aware as to what the G7 has been able to achieve or what the discussions on AI were in in Italy. But we do know that there is an EU law on AI that has been adopted. There is also a presidential order, a White House notification that US has put out. UK had hosted an AI safety meeting last year in November. So there are a number of efforts underway here. Now, whether Prime Minister Modi was able to point to what were India's special interests because India has its own experience vis a vis digital infrastructure and we have done certain things which are which we have demonstrated are scalable for a population of 1.4 billion. I think that is something which the global S is interested in. So that would be something other than that. I think I would tend to agree with both Ambassador Sibal as well as Brahma in terms of the fact that on Ukraine or on Gaza, there would be very little that we would be able to contribute in terms of peace building or peacemaking. As we know, this meeting, the G7 meeting, is going to be followed by a meeting in Switzerland called a peace conference. This is supposed to be on Ukraine. President Zelensky will be there, but Russia has not been invited. So this is like, you know, being asked to conduct a marriage, one partner absent. I don't know how how it can even be called a peace conference in that sense. So that's where I would think is right. OK, let me go across to Ambassador Sybil once again. Ambassador Sybil now again coming to the meeting with Ukraine when it comes to the upcoming peace summit, yes, Ukraine wants the Prime Minister to join. We are still deciding our level of representation for this meeting. What do you think President Zelensky would be expecting from India in terms of the role that India should play behind the scenes? Look, this is a bit ridiculous. India at the Prime Minister level should not attend the peace summit. Look, of the five BRIC members, original members, four are not going, OK, China and Russia one can expect. Russia has not been invited and China has said no. But Brazilian South Africa are also not going and India should not break ranks with the bricks so easily. However, we've always said that we want a way out of this conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. So even if an effort is being made which is manifestly deficient, but which has at its objective some kind of peace, India should not turn its back on it entirely. And therefore, as we have done in the past, we have, we have participated in the four earlier meetings, we should do it at a senior bureaucratic level at which we should state our position very clearly that you can't have a peace unless Russia is part of the initial discussions. You can't dictate to Russia the decisions that might be taken or the line or the approach that might be agreed in terms of future peace at this summit without Russia. So it's a non starter and we should not study our own position by by the Prime Minister going there at all or the foreign minister going. As I said, it should be at a senior bureaucratic level. And that should be enough because we have also to see what our equities are with the West, with the United States. Now, Jake Sullivan is a very prime MOOC of this whole affair and I believe he's visiting India or will visit India shortly. And we have a lot of equities, as I said, with the United States. Therefore, we can't entirely rebuff the United States. So this will be a neat way out. It will be essentially be a listening participation by us. We will see what the others are saying and we should stick to our position of neutrality, of finding a balance of advocating genuine peace and a genuine dialogue and underlying that. Without Russia's presence and active participation right from the start, there cannot be any serious move towards peace. OK, Brahma Chelani coming to you on the China question. I think one thing which is occupying a lot of mine space of the G7, apart from the war in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine is Chinas trade and economic policy. The large scale subsidies that China is giving, which is overcrowding and oversupplying global markets with cheap electronic goods, electric cars, electric two Wheelers that they are worried about. Also Chinas large impact on global supply chains. What do you, I think would be G7's message vis a vis China? The problem for the G7 member states is that because of the growing involvement in the Ukraine war, there's space to deal with. China is getting constricted. Their policy toward China is so constrained that if you look at Biden's approach, he has imposed no sanctions on any Chinese entity for doing business with sanctioned Russian entities. That's that underscores the fact that US can I'll afford to antagonize China at this juncture because if China and Russia were to formalize a military alliance, that would be America's worst geopolitical nightmare come true. So the deeper the West gets involved in the Ukraine war, the less space they have to deal with China's expansionism or with China's economic, economic diplomacy and its no holds bar trade approach, which is to dump goods to expand its market share to to source resources from other parts of the world. There is very little leverage that the West has as long as it is involved in a growing confrontation with Russia. Right. Let me take a break at this point. When we return, we'll go across to Ambassador Rakesh Sood about our relationship with some of the key partners we've had bilateral web with, including France. What next for the India, France relationship, the India Italy relationship? We will be discussing that in detail in just a bit. We request our all our guests to stay with us. We'll be right back.