G20 Summit Anaylsis

Canada on Friday unexpectedly said it had paused talks on a proposed trade treaty with India, just three months after the two nations said they aimed to seal an initial agreement this year.

This proposed trade treaty, CEPA, has been discussed since 2010, but the Trudeau government said that Canada paused to take stock of where they stand. Canada and India have been talking off and on since 2010 about a comprehensive economic partnership agreement. 

The talks were formally re-launched last year. 

“Trade negotiations are long, complex processes. And we’ve paused to take stock of where we are,” a government official told reporters ahead of a trip by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to New Delhi next week.

The official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified, declined to give more details.

India’s envoy to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, told the Canadian Press on Friday that Ottawa had sought a pause “within the last month” but had not explained why.

India and Canada said in May they aimed to seal an initial agreement this year to increase trade and expand investment while setting out a mechanism to deal with disputes.

Last month, a top Indian trade official said New Delhi planned to hold bilateral free trade talks with Canada and other nations on the sidelines of a G20 summit next week. Trudeau will attend the meeting. 

The much loudly touted slogan Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam of G20 has remained a slogan, and it appears to be clear that the world is one interconnected family is untrue. If this was true, why have Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Xi Jinping abstained from attending the gathering of largely Western and Western-oriented leaders G20 .

How can the slogan be taken as the leading slogan of the gathering when two big brothers of the world abstain from the event ? 

India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has in advance cleared that President Putin’s absence is for the second time that he has not attended the G 20 , but said President Xi’s absence was “more dramatic.” Only Mr. Jaishankar only knows what he means by the expression “more dramatic”. 

It is a foregone conclusion that there will be no consensus on Ukraine, which the Western block is insisting upon, and the summit is overshadowed by Western powers led by the United States.

According to a press report Union MoS Meenakshi Lekhi had claimed that the Delhi government and the Centre have collectively spent Rs 4,000 crore on the organisation of the summit. If that amount is correct, the question arises Where has the money come from, from the pocket of the already burdened middle class paying taxes? 

For the heavily burdened middle class, G20 is another burden on their tired shoulders in lieu of which they have been instructed to go off their daily income as the residents of the Capital are almost under house arrest. They can’t move out to their workplace freely, or daily wagers are deprived of their earning due to movement restrictions by security agencies. 

It is a gala show organised by the BJP government to ensure their continuity in the seat of power in the coming elections in 2024.

                        -----by Amit Mittal

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was grounded in New Delhi. His plane is said to have developed some snag, forcing him to stay back in New Delhi. In the country, he was to make a trade treaty with but withdrew at the last minute. 

Mr Trudeau was supposed to have worked out a trade treaty with India, but something held him back from doing so. Perhaps it was the large number of Sikhs back home who did not have a liking for India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have spoken to him about the separatist Sikhs in Canada, but there was no bilateral between the two leaders.

There has been scope for bilateral talks between the two, but both ends seemed to have avoided the talks. Although the said plane snag gave him ample time to be in Delhi and have a bilateral, but the issue was avoided.

New Delhi has been long sensitive to Sikh protesters in Canada. In June, India criticised Canada for allowing a float in a parade depicting the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards, perceived to be the glorification of violence by Sikh separatists.

Prime Minister Modi, who held bilateral meetings with many world leaders during the G20 summit, did not hold one with Trudeau.

                       -----by Amit Mittal

The recently concluded G-20 Summit has failed to evolve a concrete declaration as was expected of the participating leaders.

G20 was set up as a platform for finance ministers and central bank governors in 1999 to counter the effects of the Asian financial crisis, and the meeting was expanded to include leaders after the global financial crisis in 2008. But internal wranglings between the West and East have taken its toll, with prominent leaders abstaining from the Summit.

Whatever the reason behind their absence, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have proved that the G20 no longer looks after the Asian financial crisis but is a ping-pong game between strong leaders of the developed world.

Its primary aim to help low-income nations manage their debt burden under the Common Framework in recent years has just remained on paper. Leave aside President Xi’s diplomacy of attracting debt-ridden countries like Venezuela and Zambia.

                                                                   -----by Amit Mittal