Mumbai:
India is an obvious candidate to become a permanent member
of the UN Security Council, former UK Prime Minister John
Major said while addressing the keynote address on the
changing world at the Hindustan Times Leadership
Initiative in New Delhi.
"India
is in the midst of an explosion of ambition." Major
said. He had 'no doubt' that within a few years India
would become a permanent member of the UN Security Council
as well as join the G8 group of industrial nations. "Within
the next 30 year or so, it is likely that India's economy
will be larger than that of France, Germany, UK or Japan.
Major's
keynote address, moderated by former foreign affairs secretary
Salman Haider, also dwelt at length on poverty, which
'fuels despair and can be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism'.
The Conservative Party member cited statistics that show
that one half of the world's six billion people live on
less than $2 a day and one fifth on less than $1 a day.
Rich
nations do much to help but not enough. Collectively they
spend $50 billion on overseas aid. At the same time, Europe
and America alone also spend $350 million on agricultural
subsidies or seven times as much on subsidising
cheap food for those who are already well fed than the
whole world spends on all needs of those whose bellies
are often empty.
"It
is a statistic that is even more bizarre when you realise
such subsidies often cut away the possibility of poor
nations selling their agricultural produce into developed
markets," Major said.
"It
seems to me that if it is right to wage war on terror
and it is then it is equally right to wage
war on poverty and on hardship as well."
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