Mumbai to host world's largest mock UN conference

Around 65,000 Mumbai residents, under the banner of Indian International Model United Nations (IIMUN), will participate in a peace march from NSCI to Mahalaxmi Racecourse on April 10 to garner support for India getting a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This march will take place after 10,000-odd students participate in the world's largest model UN conference, organised by IIMUN at Sardar Vallabhai Patel stadium, earlier in the day.

IIMUN is a non-political network of students aged between 16 and 24 years. The reason it is organising the march and model UN conference is to show support for India getting a permanent UNSC seat. The dignitaries who would be attending the ceremony include minister of state with independent charge for power, coal, and new and renewable energy Piyush Goel and railway minister Suresh Prabhu. Invitations for the march have also been extended to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, road transport and highways and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari, Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and various stalwarts in the fields of sports, business, films and journalism.

Be it the extradition demand for terrorists being rejected by certain major world powers or be it unjust voting rights in global bodies, India has for long been treated as a second-grade citizen in global politics, said IIMUN founder and president Rishabh Shah.

"India has the largest youth population in the world, the third-largest economy and is one of the largest contributors to the UN army. They might quell the voice of one individual but they can't quell the voice of the youth of this country," Shah, who is 24 years old, said.

He added that he had founded IIMUN in 2011 with the aim of turning India into a developed country by educating young minds on local, national and international issues. The organisation has hosted 108 conferences in as many cities spread across 14 countries to spread the 'idea of India'. And now that they have reached out to more than 10 lakh students, Shah believes that the time is right to fructify classroom education into action.

He also said that almost 400 students will hold a model conference in the premises of the UN headquarters in New York on August 15, 2016.

Shah said that IIMUN is an organisation that trains students in public speaking and also teaches them about local, national and international affairs. In the conferences that it holds in different cities, students play the role of mock diplomats and discuss issues that pertain to them. Students at IIMUN believe that it is their responsibility to not only get educated on national and international issues, but to also fight for causes that pertain to our country, Shah said.

The UN is the world's foremost peacekeeping organisation, formed on October 24, 1945 after World War II, and UNSC, its apex body, is one of the most powerful international organisations around today. The UNSC has a total of 15 members, of which five are permanent members (US, UK, Russia, France and China) and 10, including India, are non-permanent rotating members, elected for a period of two years.