Somebody needs to press refresh button on United Nations, says Jaishankar

The narrow representation at the leadership levels of the UN is a challenge to its credibility, said Jaishankar, while suggesting that "somebody needs to press that refresh button on the UN"

The narrow representation at the leadership levels of the United Nations is a challenge to its credibility and effectiveness, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, while suggesting that "somebody needs to press that refresh button on the UN".

In his speech at the Global Technology Summit on Monday, Jaishankar said, "For obvious reasons, we tend to equate multilateralism with the UN. Today the UN is 75 years old...The problem we have today about the narrow representation at the leadership levels of the United Nations is a challenge to its credibility and effectiveness."

Stressing on the need to revamp the UN, he said: "You do need to reform multilateralism, you do need to make it representative, you need to refresh your phone regularly. Somebody needs to press that refresh button on the United Nations."

Jaishankar also stressed how the COVID-19 pandemic has made health security a key cog in national security. He also highlighted the sheer importance of data security.

"The sense of national security has widened to capture many other domains of our existence such as COVID-19 has made health security a very central part of national security. I would argue that pre-COVID and certainly post-COVID, data security is central to national security," the Minister said.