By Arun Kumar, IANS,
United Nations: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday called for making the UN “stronger and more effective” with revitalisation of the General Assembly and reforms and expansion of the decision making Security Council to “reflect contemporary reality”.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister also called for pursuing the reform of governance systems of international institutions with “speed and efficiency”.
“We should not allow the global economic slowdown to become a trigger for building walls around ourselves through protectionism or erecting barriers to movement of people, services and capital,” he said.
Noting that nuclear proliferation continues to remain a threat to international security, Manmohan Singh said the “action plan put forward by (then) prime minister Rajiv Gandhi provides a concrete road map for achieving nuclear disarmament in a time bound, universal, non-discriminatory, phased and verifiable manner”.
Expressing confidence that people’s faith in the UN Charter and objectives of the UN “through statesmanship, foresight and collective efforts”, he declared “India stands ready to play its part in this noble endeavour”.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])