France reiterates support for India’s permanent seat in reformed UN Security Council - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

France reiterates support for India’s permanent seat in reformed UN Security Council.

India has been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council along with Brazil, Germany and Japan for long, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.

France, which assumed the March Presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has reiterated its support for India as the permanent member of the powerful UN organ, saying the UNSC’s enlargement is the “first crucial part” towards its reform.

India has been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council along with Brazil, Germany and Japan for long, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.
France, a veto-wielding permanent member of the 15-nation Security Council, last month moved a fresh proposal in the UNSC along with the US and the UK to designate Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.
Reiterating its support for India, Germany and Japan as permanent members of an expanded Council, France said that enlargement of the powerful UN organ in both permanent and non-permanent categories is the “first crucial part” towards UNSC reform.
“We want enlargement of the Security Council in the two categories of non-permanent and permanent categories – India, Brazil, Germany and Japan – and equitable representation of Africans and so that is the first crucial part of it,” French Permanent Representative to the UN François Delattre told reporters here Friday.
Delattre, at a joint press briefing with the German envoy to the UN Christoph Heusgen, said that the key to UN reform is openness through three different areas – the openness of the Security Council that entails expansion of the 15-nation, partnership and openness to civil society.
Germany will take over the Presidency in April. “That is a strategic aim that France has and I do believe it is Germany’s strategic aim as well… If we believe in the UN and the representative nature of the Security Council, we need to ensure that enlargement (of UNSC) be a success sooner rather than later,” Delattre said.
He stressed that the UN cannot be recognised as a centre of gravity for multilateralism throughout the world unless it can step-up partnerships and focus should also be made on openness to civil society, business world, NGOs and trade unions, which are all stakeholders that breathe life into the UN.
“The reform of the Security Council through its enlargement is one of the key areas and key priorities of our diplomacy,” Delattre said.
The German Ambassador pointed out that the Security Council, in its present composition, does not reflect the realities of this world.
“France and Germany spoke with one voice in this and we need to have reforms,” Heusgen said adding that “If you don’t reform the Security Council, it will lose legitimacy and therefore I think we should really work forward”.
France has maintained that if the crisis of recent times have confirmed the centrality of the UN, they have also reinforced the need to make the organisation more effective and more representative of the current balances in the world.
“That is why France pushes for the expansion of the Security Council by supporting the accession to a permanent seat of Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, as well as a greater presence of African countries,” according to the Permanent Mission of France.
India is at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reforms of the Security Council.
Last week, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said on the issue of ‘Categories of Membership’, a total of 113 member states out of the 122 which submitted their positions in the Framework Document, support expansion in both of the existing categories specified in the Charter.
“In short, more than 90 per cent of the written submissions in the document are in favour of expansion in both categories of membership specified in the Charter,” he said during the informal meeting of the plenary on the inter-governmental negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the UNSC.
Earlier, Akbaruddin had said that while reform at the UN is a process rather than an event, “there is no process known to us here that has traversed winding pathways in the manner as this process of the Reform of the Security Council”.
“In terms of inertia too, it has no peer. While the world is not what it was when we began the process, the objections to moving forward remain the same. (Source:Indiatoday)


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France reiterates support for India’s permanent seat in reformed UN Security Council.

France backs India's efforts to list JeM chief Masood Azhar as global terrorist - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

France backs India's efforts to list JeM chief Masood Azhar as global terrorist.

• With France backing India, it puts China, which has repeatedly blocked Azhar’s proscription at the UN, on notice
• At the forthcoming meeting of the Financial Action Task Force in Paris, France will lobby to retain Pakistan on the “grey list”
France is leading Western efforts to collar Pakistan-based terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar whose group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack that killed at least 40 Indian security personnel. France will move a proposal at the UN in a “couple of days" to designate Azhar a global terrorist, a foreign diplomat familiar with the development said on Tuesday.

Besides this, at the forthcoming meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris, France will lobby to retain Pakistan on the “grey list," the diplomat said. The FATF is an inter-governmental body that sets standards and promotes effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
“At the UN, France will lead a proposal to put Masood Azhar on the terrorist list... It will happen in a couple of days," the diplomat said. The French decision figured in discussions between Philippe Etienne, diplomatic advisor to the French President Emmanuel Macron and India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval by telephone on Tuesday.
France’s backing of India puts China, which has repeatedly blocked Azhar’s proscription at the UN, on notice. Indian foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale had met China’s ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui on Friday to seek Beijing’s cooperation on the matter. News of the French move comes as Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who during a visit to Pakistan on Monday backed Islamabad’s record on fighting terrorism, arrived in New Delhi on a two-day visit on Tuesday. This, along with a reference to Pakistani moves to promote regional peace in the Pakistan-Saudi joint statement, has discomfited India.
But when he landed in New Delhi, the crown prince was received at the airport by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, signalling India would not stick to protocol in its interaction with an important Gulf partner that New Delhi would like to co-opt in its fight against terrorism.
New Delhi had earlier conveyed to the Saudi side that MBS’s India visit immediately on the heels of the Pakistan leg would not be welcome. This prompted the crown prince to go back home and come to India after a day. (Source: Livemint)


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France backs India's efforts to list JeM chief Masood Azhar as global terrorist.

India's economy to overtake Britain, France in 2019, possibly 2020: Report - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India's economy to overtake Britain, France in 2019, possibly 2020: Report.

China is likely to overtake the United States as the world's No. 1 economy in 2032, two years later than previously expected.

In the race to outpace developed economies, emerging countries such as China, India, and Brazil suffered a setback this year and will outgrow them later than previously expected, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said.
The Cebr consultancy's 2019 World Economic League Table was more downbeat on the global economy than last year's outlook.

"For the medium term, we are roughly as optimistic as we were a year ago, but suspect the route to growth will be more bumpy than we had assumed 12 months ago," said the report, which forecast the fortunes of 193 countries to 2033.
China is likely to overtake the United States as the world's No. 1 economy in 2032, two years later than previously expected, due to a more lax monetary policy and lower exchange rate, the Cebr said.
It expects Brazil to overtake Italy in 2020, not 2018.
India would overtake Britain and France, probably in 2019, but possibly 2020, rather than in 2018 as it predicted a year ago.
Britain would likely lose its place as then the sixth biggest economy to France next year due to Brexit-related disruption, but should regain that position by 2023.
The Cebr also projected Ireland to be among the fastest growing economies in the euro zone next year, but said Brexit posed a big downside risk to that forecast.
The effects of a trade war between the world's two biggest economies have made themselves felt across global markets this year, and dented world trade growth.
The volume of world trade growth is likely to be up 2.99 per cent this year, less than two-thirds of the increase in 2017, the Cebr estimates.
The report's forecasts chimed with a deepening sense that optimism about synchronised global growth was overcooked, and that markets got ahead of themselves.
A Reuters poll of economists in late October signalled the outlook for global growth in 2019 dimmed for the first time.
Ammunition for a recession
Markets have suffered this year as investors fled risky assets, afraid monetary tightening from the world's central banks is removing too much support from the economy as a trade war weighs on growth.
"With debt high and many of the structural problems that caused the great recession still in existence, a global recession could be more difficult to resolve than its predecessors," the Cebr said.
But policymakers and governments still have enough ammunition to see the world through the next recession, according to Douglas McWilliams, deputy chairman of the Cebr, though he saw a shift from monetary to fiscal action.
"We're in a world now where there's a sense that a certain degree of fiscal action will have to be applied in order to avoid the world falling flat on its face," McWilliams said.
Government spending is likely to rise, both from fiscal easing and from discretionary spending, he added, saying he saw governments delivering more support than central banks.
With many economies facing an infrastructure backlog and mega-projects such as China's Belt and Road ongoing, the Cebr forecasts global construction spending will rise from $11.5 billion to $27.4 billion or 15.5 percent of world GDP by 2033.
McWilliams expected the average fiscal deficit for the OECD area to come in at 5 per cent of GDP in 2020, higher than the OECD's forecast of 3.2 per cent.
"A 5 per cent spend is risking it a bit, but the developed economies are in a better position to take that risk than emerging economies," he said. (Source: The Business Standard)


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India's economy to overtake Britain, France in 2019, possibly 2020: Report.

India, France set up working group for Gaganyaan - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India, France set up working group for Gaganyaan.

The announcement of setting up a working group for Gaganyaan was made at the sixth edition of Bengaluru Space Expo by French space agency president Jean-Yves Le Gall.

India and France Thursday announced a working group for Gaganyaan, Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first manned space mission announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day.
The announcement was made at the sixth edition of Bengaluru Space Expo by French space agency president Jean-Yves Le Gall.
India plans to send three humans to space before 2022. ISRO’s mission is significant as it would make India one of the four countries in the world after Russia, US and China to launch a manned space flight.
ISRO and CNES, the French space agency, will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems, Gall said.
Engineering teams have already begun discussions and it is envisioned that infrastructure such as CADMOS centre for development of microgravity applications and space operations or the MEDES space clinic will be used for training of future Indian astronauts, as well as exchange of specialist personnel, Gall said.
ISRO plans to conduct experiments on microgravity through its astronauts. French-Indian space cooperation includes climate monitoring, with a fleet of joint satellites devoted to research and operational applications. The two countries also have plans to work on Mars, Venus and asteroids.
“CNES is especially proud to be working on this endeavour alongside ISRO to share the experience it has acquired from the first French human space flights to Thomas Pesquet’s Proxima mission, and to hone our own expertise by learning from ISRO’s innovative developments in the field of crew transport.”(Source: Livemint)


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India, France set up working group for Gaganyaan.

India overtakes France to become world's sixth-largest economy - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India overtakes France to become world's sixth-largest economy.

India is expected to grow at 7.4 per cent in 2018 and 7.8 per cent in 2019, leaving its nearest rival China behind.

India's GDP in 2017 was USD 2.597 trillion, slightly ahead of France's USD 2.582 trillion, according to World Bank data.
India has become the world's sixth-largest economy, pushing France to seventh place, according to World Bank data on gross domestic product (GDP) of countries for 2017.
India's GDP in 2017 was $2.597 trillion, slightly ahead of France's $2.582 trillion. But France's per capita GDP was about 20 times higher than India's.
India ranks just below the UK, which recorded a GDP of $2.622 trillion in 2017.
The US topped the list, with a GDP of $19.390 trillion, followed by China, which had a GDP of $12.237 trillion. Japan, Germany ranked third and fourth respectively.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast India's economy to grow at 7.4 percent in 2018 and 7.8 percent in 2019. At this pace, India's growth will be significantly faster than the IMF's world average of 3.9 percent in 2018.


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India overtakes France to become world's sixth-largest economy.