Full text: PM Modi’s maiden speech at the UN General Assembly

Full text: PM Modi’s maiden speech at the UN General Assembly

Full text: PM Modi’s maiden speech at the UN General Assembly

CNN-IBN | Sat Sep 27, 2014 | 23:20 IST   

Narendra Modi addressed the 69th UN General Assembly for the first time after he became the Prime Minister of India. Modi is currently on a 5-day visit to the US, his first as PM.

Here is the full text of the Prime Minister's speech at the United Nations General Assembly:

Mr President and distinguished delegates,

Let me first congratulate you on your election as the President of the 69th session of United Nations General Assembly.

Full text: PM Modi

It is a truly a great honour to address you for the first time as the Prime Minister of India. I stand here conscious of the hopes and expectations of the people of India. I am also mindful of the expectations of the world from 1.25 billion people.

India is a country that constitutes one-sixth of humanity; a nation experiencing economic and social transformation on a scale rarely seen in history.

Every nation's world view is shaped by its civilization and philosophical tradition. India's ancient wisdom sees the world as one family. It is this timeless current of thought that gives India an unwavering belief in multilateralism.

Today, as I stand here, I am equally aware of the hopes that are pinned on this great assembly. I am struck by the sacred belief that brought us together. An extraordinary vision and a clear recognition of our shared destiny brought us together to build this institution for advancing peace and security, the rights of every human being and economic development for all. From 51 nations then, today 193 sovereign flaÿs flv at thiÿ hope.

We have achieved much in the past six decades in our mission in ending wars, preventing conflict, maintaining peace, feeding the hungry, striving to save our planet and creating opportunities for children. 69 UN peacekeeping missions since 1948 have made the blue helmet the colour of peace.

Today, there is a surge of democracy across the world; including in South Asia; in Afghanistan, we are at a historic moment of democratic transition and affirmation of unity. Afghans are showing that their desire for a peaceful and democratic future will prevail over violence. Nepal has moved from violence to peace and democracy; Bhutan's young democracy is flourishing. Democracy is trying to find a voice in West Asia and North Africa; Tunisia's success makes us believe that it is possible.

There is a new stirring for stability, progress and progress in Africa. There is unprecedented spread of prosperity in Asia and beyond, rising on the strength of peace and stability. Latin America, a continent of enormous potential, is coming together in shared pursuit of stability and prosperity, which could make it an important anchor of the world. India desires a peaceful and stable environment for its development. A nation's destiny is linked to its neighbourhood. That is why
my Government has placed the highest priority on advancing friendship and cooperation with her neighbours.

This includes Pakistan. I am prepared to engage in a serious bilateral dialogue with Pakistan in a peaceful atmosphere, without the shadow of terrorism, to promote our friendship and cooperation. However, Pakistan must also take its responsibility seriously to create an appropriate environment. Raising issues in this forum is not the way to make progress towards resolving issues between ourtwo countries. Instead, today, we should be thinking about the victims of floods in Jammu and Kashmir. In India, we have organized massive flood relief operations and have also offered assistance for Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

India is part of the developing world, but we are prepared to share our modest resources with those countries that need this assistance as much as we do.

This is a time of great flux and change. The world is witnessing tensions and turmoil on a scale rarely seen in recent history. There are no major wars, but tensions and conflicts abound; and, there is absence of real peace and uncertainty about the future. An integrating Asia Pacific region is still concerned about maritime security that is fundamental to its future. Europe faces risk of new division. In West Asia, extremism and fault lines are growing. Our own region continues to face the destabilizing threat of terrorism. Africa faces the twin threat of rising terrorism and a health crisis. Terrorism is taking new shape and new name. No country, big or small, in the north or the south, east or west, is free from its threat.

Are we really making concerted international efforts to fight these forces, or are we still hobbled by our politics, our divisions, our discrimination between countries.

We welcome efforts to combat terrorism's resurgence in West Asia, which is affecting countries near and far. The effort should involve the support of al! countries in the region. Today, even as seas, space and cyber space have become new instruments of prosperity, they could also become a new theatre of conflicts.

Today, more than ever, the need for an international compact, which is the foundation of the United Nations, is stronger than before. While we speak of an interdependent world, have we become more united as nations? Today, we still operate in various Gs with different numbers. India, too, is involved in several. But, how much are we able to work together as G1 or G-All? On the one side, we say that our destinies are inter-linked, on the other hand we still think in terms of zero sum game. If the other benefits, I stand to lose.

It is easy to be cynical and say nothing will change; but if we do that, we run the risk of shirking our responsibilities and we put our collective future in danger.

Let us bring ourselves in tune with the call of our times.

First, let us work for genuine peace, No one country or group of countries can determine the course of this world. There has to be a genuine international partnership. This is not just a moral position, but a practical reality. We need a genuine dialogue and engagement between countries. I say this from the conviction of the philosophical tradition that I come from.

Our efforts must begin here - in the United Nations.

We must reform the United Nations, including the Security Council, and make it more democratic and participative. Institutions that reflect the imperatives of 20th century won't be effective in the 21st. It would face the risk of irrelevance; and we will face the risk of continuing turbulence with no one capable of addressing it.

We should put aside our differences and mount a concerted international effort to combat terrorism and extremism. As a symbol of this effort, I urge you to adopt the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

We should ensure that there will be peace, stability and order in the outer space and cyber space. We should work together to ensure that all countries observe international rules and norms. Let us continue redouble our efforts to pursue universal global disarmament and nonproliferation.

Second, we must pursue a more stable and inclusive global development Globalisation has created new poles of growth; new industries; and new source of employment.

At the same time, billions live on the edge of poverty and want; countries that are barely able to survive a global economic storm.

There has never been a time when it has seemed more possible than now to change this. Technology has made things possible; the cost of providing it has reduced. We no longer are totally dependent on bricks and mortars.

If you think of the speed with which Facebook or Twitter has spread around the world, if you think of the speed with which cell phones have spread, then you must also believe that development and empowerment can spread with the same speed.

Each country must of course take its own national measures; each government must fulfill its responsibility to support growth and development. At the same time, we also require a genuine international partnership. At one level, it means a better coordination of policy so that our efforts becomes mutually supportive, not mutually damaging.

It also means that when we craft agreements on international trade, we accommodate each other's concerns and interests.

When we think of the scale of want in the world - 2.5 billion people without access to basic sanitation; 1.3 billion people without access to electricity; or 1.1 billion people without access to drinking water, we need a more comprehensive and concerted direct international action.

In India, the most important aspects of my development agenda are precisely to focus on these issues. The eradication of poverty must remain at the core of the Post-am5 Development Agenda and command our fullest attention. Third, we must seek a more habitable and sustainable world.

I want to say three things.

One, we should be honest in shouldering our responsibilities in meeting the challenges. The world had agreed on a beautiful balance of collective action - common but differentiated responsibilities. That should form the basis of continued action. This also means that the developed countries must fulfill their commitments for funding and technology transfer.

Second, national action is imperative. Technology has made many things possible. We need imagination and commitment. India is prepared to share its technology and capabilities, just as we have announced a free satellite for the SAARC countries.

Third, we need to change our lifestyles. Energy not consumed is the cleanest energy.
We can achieve the same level of development, prosperity and well being without necessarily going down the path of reckless consumption. It doesn't mean that economies will suffer; it will mean that our economies will take on a different character. For us in India, respect for nature is an integral part of spiritualism. We treat nature's bounties as sacred.

Yoga is an invaluable gift of our ancient tradition. Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistie approach to health and well being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change.

Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.

Finally,

We are at a historic moment. Every age is defined by its character; and, each generation is remembered for how it rose together to meet its challenges. We have that responsibility to rise to our challenges now. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in this great assembly.

Next year we will be seventy, we should ask ourselves whether we should wait until we are 80 or 100. Let us fulfill our promise to reform the United Nations Security Council by 2o15. Let us fulfill our pledge on a Post-2o15 Development Agenda so that there is new hope and belief in us around the world. Let us make 2m5 also a new watershed for a sustainable world. Let it be the beginning of a new journey together.

Thank you

திலீபன் 27 சர்வதேசிய முழக்கம்!

அறிமுகம் திலீபன் இணையம்

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புதிய ஈழம்: திலீபன் 27 - இந்திய விரிவாதிக்க எதிர்ப்பு முழக்கங்...

புதிய ஈழம்: திலீபன் 27 - இந்திய விரிவாதிக்க எதிர்ப்பு முழக்கங்...: திலீபன் 27 ம் ஆண்டு நினைவாக! திலீபன் நினைவு நீடூழி வாழ்க! இந்திய விரிவாதிக்க மோடிப் பாசிச அரசே, * இந்திய இலங்கை ஆக்கிரமிப்...

How the plan to save the Union backfired

The Union is saved – but at what cost?

The Nos have it, but Britain has been left a divided country. How did our politicians get the referendum battle so wrong?

The SpectatorFraser Nelson and James Forsyth 20 September 2014

The worst has not happened; Scotland has not seceded from the United Kingdom. But David Cameron will have known some time ago that, whichever side won in the referendum, there would be no victory. This morning, the United Kingdom wakes up to one of the biggest constitutional messes in its history.

Given that the unionists had the best product to sell — Britain — it is alarming that they were supported by only 55 per cent of Scots. For months, the opinion polls had suggested far bigger support. The unionists may have won the election, but the separatists emphatically won the campaign. The Prime Minister had to turn to Gordon Brown, and seemingly give him the authority to redraft the constitution at will. He must now accept the consequences.

Ever since the YouGov poll that put Yes ahead, the British government has — one cabinet minister admits — operated by one principle: to live another day. ‘Nothing less than a modern form of Scottish home rule’ was offered, and a vow to keep the Barnett formula was made in a desperate bid to persuade the Scots to stay. Having acted in haste, the Prime Minister will have to repent at leisure — starting now.

This referendum was meant to settle the question of Scottish independence for good. But few believe it has done that. ‘We have heard the settled will of the Scottish people,’ said the Prime Minister. Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign, said, ‘The people of Scotland have spoken — we have chosen unity over division.’ Both will have known this to be untrue. There is no such thing as the settled will of the Scottish people, and almost half of them chose division. As one Labour insider admits, ‘There’s no way this is over.’ But this referendum — and more specifically the scramble to win it in the last fortnight — has created another question which now threatens to dominate politics.

The English Question is unavoidable, for as soon as parliament returns, the parties will move on the timetable dictated by Gordon Brown. He promised that a motion would be moved in parliament, on the day of a ‘no’ vote, to agree extra powers for Scotland (he meant powers to the Edinburgh parliament, which is a rather different thing). They will discuss which powers to devolve, focusing on income tax, housing benefit and welfare assessments. According to Brown, there will be agreement by St Andrew’s Day (30 November), and a Bill will then be presented to parliament in the New Year and agreed by Burns Night (25 January). The Union is to be rewired at breakneck speed.

Nick Clegg is quite happy with this, and Cameron, despite private reservations, set out the timetable in his statement outside Downing Street on Friday morning. Those who have spoken to the Prime Minister say he does not envisage any significant powers passing to Holyrood before the general election in May. As for Labour, Ed Balls is understood to be seething at all of this, saying that it makes it impossible for Labour to pass a budget for England. How could Scottish MPs vote on income tax that did not affect their constituents? He has pointedly refused to endorse the Brown plan.

But the biggest problem may be backbench Tory MPs. ‘I have never known the party so angry,’ says one minister. ‘They’re seething with this “vow” and believe that Cameron has no right to sign anything away to Scotland without his party’s approval. They’re quite capable of withholding their support for the Bill, and to hell with the consequences.’

Of course, any failure to deliver ‘Scottish Home Rule’ to the Brown timetable will give the Nationalists the excuse they need to reopen the whole independence debate. Alex Salmond conceded only that Scots did not want to separate ‘at this time’. The First Minister would be delighted to be able to claim that Scots rejected independence on a false premise: that they were pledged far more powers, but perfidious Westminster did not honour this pledge. So if Cameron is reined back by his party, then the SNP will be pushing for another vote — and the result will be a ‘neverendum’, with constant constitutional instability.

Clegg is quite keen on a new settlement for England, and doesn’t mind whether that means more power to the cities (i.e. to mayors) or power at a regional level. ‘But we have to remember that England has not shown much enthusiasm for this so far,’ says one Lib Dem minister. ‘They voted down regional assemblies, and almost all of the proposals for mayors. We can’t foist a new, rushed settlement on England.’ Comparisons are being drawn with the so-called Scottish Constitutional Convention, which preceded devolution in 1999. Its meetings took six years.

The origins of this mess go back to the last century. The whole New Labour devolution settlement has been a disaster. It was intended to (as Labour then put it) ‘kill demand for independence stone dead’. And it was an obsession for Scottish Labour. The late John Smith wanted this done, and Tony Blair inherited the project. The idea was to make a separatist majority impossible. After all, in a four-party system with semi–proportional voting, was any party ever going to win an outright majority?

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But rather than strengthen the Union, devolution weakened it by creating separate national conversations. National newspapers began to produce Scottish editions — they were a commercial success, but meant the people of Britain knew less and less about each other. Even Westminster insiders are uninterested in the Holyrood parliament. As one Tory cabinet member puts it: ‘I could not name more than three members of the Scottish government, which is bad. What’s worse, in fact, is that I could not care.’

When Scottish Labour held its leadership contest, Ed Miliband was asked on camera to name all the contenders. He couldn’t. His ignorance was made marginally more excusable by the lamentable quality of the candidates. That Better Together has appeared keener to use the leader of the Scottish Conservatives than the Scottish Labour party in recent weeks tells you all you need to know about the abilities of Johann Lamont and the candidates she defeated.

Devolution sent the best nationalists to Edinburgh, and the rest of Scotland’s best politicians to Westminster, hoping to govern the United Kingdom. Alex Salmond and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon faced an army of B-division politicians, and they duly made mincemeat out of them in the 2011 Holyrood elections, and have done so again in the last few weeks. Even when the big beasts returned, the Nationalists were able to suggest that they were somehow less Scottish for being at Westminster. They fed the idea that these politicians were only defending the Union so they could keep their jobs and carry on claiming their expenses.

At the last general election, Scottish Labour appeared to be as dominant as ever, with 42 per cent of the vote. Yet this disguised the extent of the rot. Safe seats made Scottish Labour lazy. They spent years winning without fighting. The party failed to recruit inspiring new leaders, in Scotland or England. Voters in Scotland who loathe the Tories and think the Labour leader is just as bad are far more likely to want separation. The greatest single problem for the Better Together campaign was the defection of Labour voters.

Perhaps the biggest reveal of the decline of Scottish Labour is how it relied on George Galloway to reach its traditional working-class supporters in the final frantic weeks of the campaign. Galloway does not sit for a Scottish seat and is not even a Labour MP, having been expelled from the party. But he was the man that the No campaign deployed with increasing frequency to make the left-wing case for the Union.

But it was Cameron, not anyone in the Labour party, who granted the referendum, and accepted Salmond’s loaded question. It was Cameron who ruled out the middle option, ‘devo max’, which he came close to offering anyway. At the time, No. 10 aides briefed that Cameron had cleverly forced the issue by forcing Salmond to hold a referendum on a single yes-or-no question. It does not seem so clever now.

One cabinet minister laments, ‘We didn’t learn the lessons of the 1975 European referendum. The question should have been “Do you want Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom?” That would have made the campaign less negative.’ The actual question — ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ — reads like something that belongs in an SNP leaflet rather than on a ballot paper. It is hard to imagine an EU referendum being fought with a question along the lines of ‘Should Britain be a self-governing country?’

Once the terms of the referendum were agreed, the coalition parties outsourced the winning of it to the Labour party — a recognition of the fact that Scottish Tories are now pitied (far worse than being hated) and that Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats are so weak that all of his mainland Scottish seats are in danger. The coalition parties’ two highly skilled, highly paid electoral campaign managers — Lynton Crosby and Ryan Coetzee — were not involved in the Scotland campaign. This divorced the political strategies of the two governing parties from the referendum. Crosby has been warning for months that the result was not going to be the foregone conclusion so many in Westminster assumed it would be.

Take, for example, the question of what currency an independent Scotland would use. Better Together’s polling had revealed that this was a crucial issue for undecided voters, so it was decided that all the Westminster parties should rule out a currency union. But to the horror of political professionals, no proper polling had been done about how this announcement should be made. So George Osborne headed to Edinburgh to set down what an independent Scotland could have. Ed Balls and Danny Alexander immediately gave their backing. Played that way, one of the ‘no’ campaign’s strongest arguments simply became more evidence for the ‘yes’ campaign’s contention that the Westminster parties were bullying Scotland.

Another problem was that the coalition could not decide whom it wanted to run the Better Together campaign. John Reid was at first regarded as the perfect choice — a Labour figure untainted by the great recession who appealed to the working-class west of Scotland voters who would determine the result. He was also a street fighter, someone who could tackle Salmond on his own terms. But he could not be persuaded, so Alistair Darling was chosen.

Darling is one of the most decent men in politics — but he is a cerebral, cautious Edinburgh lawyer: not the type who would be expected to triumph in the pub brawl that the referendum was to become. With the notable exception of the first debate, Darling struggled to expose Salmond’s fact-twisting demagoguery.

To be fair, Darling has had many crosses to bear. Tory doubts about him have regularly found their way into the newspapers at inconvenient moments. The heaviest burden that he has had to bear, though, is that of the Labour party and the Scottish Labour party. He has had to deal with a slew of negative briefings against him, including stories that he had effectively been replaced as head of the campaign. Those close to him regularly erupted at Labour’s inability to avoid this kind of self-harm.

The Better Together campaign was a cross-party affair. But what most infuriated the Tories about it was, ironically, the responsibility of the Conservative pollster Andrew Cooper. They blamed him for the lack of emphasis on Britishness. When The Spectator pointed out to a No. 10 aide that an ICM poll had found that the most common reason for voting ‘No’ was a sense of attachment to the rest of the UK, head office reacted with shock, replying: ‘But that’s not what Andrew’s polling has been saying.’ Cooper’s numbers suggested that a heavily economic case was more likely to succeed.

A mixture of Labour squeamishness and Tory uselessness ensured that the battle for Britain was never properly fought. The case for the Union was reduced to a series of dire and sometimes implausible warnings. ‘No ifs, no buts — an independent Scotland would not share the pound with the rest of the UK,’ declared Osborne. But were the redcoats really going to come north and prise the pound from Scottish purses? Of course not. As Darling later admitted, Scotland could keep using the pound if it wanted. The issue was whether it could share a central bank.

Even Gordon Brown, a ninja of attack politics, complained that Better Together was too negative. He sulked in his tent for much of the campaign, and his suggestion that David Cameron should debate Alex Salmond was positively malicious. He was passionate and effective in the last few weeks, but the last Scottish prime minister of the United Kingdom, a living rejection of the SNP’s colonial-oppression argument, spoke up too late to have the positive impact he should have done.

Even more striking is the fact that the most powerful union in Britain, Unite, sat out the contest. Len McCluskey’s public explanation for this was that his Scottish membership was split. But senior Labour figures believe that his real motivation was to show the party that Unite’s support could not be taken for granted. McCluskey wanted to make it clear that if his union could not get what it wanted from Labour, it wouldn’t pledge money or organisational assistance. Sitting out the referendum was meant to show that he was prepared to sit out other elections, too, if he didn’t feel his union’s needs were being met. This gambit nearly contributed to the break-up of the United Kingdom and with it the end of any possibility of a genuinely left-wing government at Westminster.

But the most useful idiot for the ‘yes’ campaign was the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham. Ever since the 2010 leadership election, he has had his eye on a second tilt at the crown. He has changed from a modernising, Blairite to a rabble-rousing, left-wing populist. Since returning to the health brief, he has indulged in the most absurd hyperbole about the NHS being sold off and privatised under the evil Tories — rhetoric that the ‘yes’ campaign picked up and gleefully repackaged. Vote yes, Scottish voters were told, to save the NHS.

NHS Scotland was scarcely mentioned in Alex Salmond’s massive blueprint for an independent Scotland. He could not honestly claim that it was under any kind of threat from London. But Salmond quickly realised that he could claim whatever he liked — no matter how absurd. His opponents would be too busy contradicting each other to mount any credible defence.

The unionist campaign was designed to achieve a victory clear enough to end the independence question for a generation. Instead, it found itself taking support for separation to levels never seen, or anticipated. Scotland is now a divided country, after a debate that has split families and damaged friendships. The healing process will begin, but no one can claim the country is stronger for all of this. It would have been bad enough for the combination of Cameron, Miliband and Clegg to have had no impact in saving the Union — but in many ways they managed to make things worse. This weekend, all three party leaders have a lot to answer for.

Full analysis of the result and its aftermath is on spectator.co.uk

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 20 September 2014

YES Scotland!

A Marxist Case for an Independent Scotland

சீனத் திருத்தல்வாதிகளின் தலைவனே ஈழ மண்ணில் கால் வையாதே!

The northern insurgency in Sri Lanka made Sri Lanka rely heavily on Chinese weaponry, especially guns and endless supplies of ammunition, artillery guns, shells, naval craft and fighter jets to squash the rebels when Western nations were reluctant to come forward with help. Credit lines were opened so that we could get supplies from the People’s Liberation Army ‘on tick’.

From Editorial Sunday Times LK: How indebted is Sri Lanka to China?

ஐ.நா.பேரணி 15-09-2014

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புதிய ஈழம்: A Marxist Case for an Independent Scotland

புதிய ஈழம்: A Marxist Case for an Independent Scotland: A Marxist Case for an Independent Scotland Introduction Marxists have an ambivalent attitude towards the national question. On the...