With Prime Minister Narendra Modi all set to participate at the G7 outreach summit over the weekend virtually, UK had told India that his presence at the meet will be "seamless". UK has invited India for the G7 meet, but PM Modi could not attend it physically due to the 2nd wave of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.
WION has learnt that UK conveyed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson "understands & supports" PM Modi's decision and "will make all efforts to ensure his participation at the summit seamless' as if "he were actually in the room". It was on 11th May, New Delhi announced that PM Modi won't be participating in the meet in person.
PM Modi will be speaking at 3 sessions on Saturday and Sunday (12th and 13th June) which are themed-- Building Back Stronger, Building Back Together, and Building Back Greener. UK as the chair of the G7 this year had invited India, along with Australia, South Korea and South Africa.
This is the 7th time UK is leading the G7 and the theme is ‘Build Back Better". London has outlined 4 priority areas during the meet, which include global recovery from covid, trade, climate change, and "Championing shared values and open societies".
India has been taking part in G7 meetings that have taken place earlier this year. This includes India's Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan taking part in the G7 health minister meet on 4th June, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar taking part in G7 ministerial on 21st May, IT minister taking part in Ministerial meeting on 29 April, and Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal representing India at G7 Economic Resilience Panel as an Observer.
India has been in the past been invited to G7 outreach summits. India was first invited for the G7 outreach summit in 2003 when the then Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Invited by France. From 2005 to 2009, India has been annually invited to the G7 outreach summit with PM Manmohan Singh representing India.
India has been invited to G7 since 2019 consecutively, with PM Modi participating in G7 ‘Biarritz Summit’ in 2019 chaired by France as “a Goodwill Partner”. In 2020, President Donald Trump had invited PM Modi for the G7 outreach summit at Camp David. The summit was to take place in June 2020 but due to the COVID crisis, it could not happen.
