India stood out at the G-20 meet for its shortage of people
A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi Sep 29, 2009, 00:26 IST
For the Indian government, the Pittsburgh Summit has many lessons. The meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) countries ended last week with India realising that it would now have a bigger role to play in the global arena. It would have a say in the manner in which policy prescriptions are to be framed by G-20, now that it has become the premier body for global economic issues.
There is yet another lesson India should have learnt from Pittsburgh: How the Indian government is short of both people and ideas on information dissemination, when it comes to playing an important role in a global body. That it is short of people becomes obvious when one compares the size of the Chinese or even South Korean delegations at the G-20 summit at Pittsburgh with what had been put up by India. There was only one joint secretary-level official from the finance ministry who was shuttling from one room to the other, providing inputs and suggestions to the various meetings that were concurrently going on at the conference centre at Pittsburgh.
Compare this with what the Chinese did. They had assigned several senior officials for different meetings — one set for the G-20 meeting of its sherpas (the special emissaries of the heads of the member governments) and another set for the meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which too were holding their preparatory meetings at Pittsburgh at the same time.
The Chinese have clearly realised that they must invest in building a strong team of officials to make an impact during consultations at these global conferences. So, they created specialised groups of officials who were assigned specific responsibilities in making sure that the Chinese political leadership gets adequate inputs for making themselves heard at the G-20 forum.
In India, the finance ministry’s international co-operation division is preoccupied largely with the affairs of the World Bank and the IMF. The same team that deals with the World Bank and the IMF is now working on India’s interaction with G-20. There is clearly a need for building and expanding a team in the finance ministry that should handle India’s relations with the World Bank, IMF and G-20.
In fact, there is now need for greater co-ordination and co-operation between the ministry of external affairs and the finance ministry. In the early days of economic reforms during the 1990s, there was a proposal to rename the ministry of external affairs as the ministry of economic affairs, in an attempt to underline the importance of economic diplomacy in a country that was growing rapidly and would increasingly play a bigger role in the world economy. The thought then may have been a little premature. But as a member of G-20, the time is now ripe for the Indian government to either expand the international co-operation division in the finance ministry or create a separate division on economic co-operation using officials available in the foreign ministry.
The shortage of ideas was clear from the manner in which the Indian government disseminated information about its interaction with other leaders of G-20 at Pittsburgh. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had gone to Pittsburgh, taking along with him a delegation of media representatives. By his own account, he had a “productive” meeting with other G-20 leaders. But apart from one press conference by the prime minister at the end of the meeting, the Indian government had not organised even one media briefing on how India dealt with the economic issues that came up for discussion at Pittsburgh.
Yes, there was a briefing from the National Security Advisor. Another briefing came from the Special Envoy of the PM on climate change. But was G-20 about security or about climate change? Or was it about global economic issues? The PM’s team had his Sherpa, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla. Did the PM’s team make full use of them and the media delegation present at Pittsburgh? The fact is that none of them came for a briefing. In sharp contrast, all other important member countries were briefing their own media representatives about what their leaders said and how they made significant contributions to the debate at G-20.
India stood out for its shortage of people and ideas on information dissemination.
Very razor sharp analysis but of course, Indians would react to it as ususal. Indians do not like to hear criticism, howsoever, constructive and given out of love. No, they just want to hear how great we were, how we gave zero to India, etc. etc. Every thing in the past forgetting that we were ruled by Moghuls for over 1000 years. We never learn. Do we?
So, this failure was India's. However, the things went the other way, the success would have been attributed to the wisdom, sagacity, stature and what not of Dr Fake Singh Dhongi!
Content Guide
