Tharoor calls for expansion of UN security council

Last Updated: Friday, August 06, 2010, 22:52

Tags: tharoor, security council

Mumbai: Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor today underlined the need for an early expansion of the powerful UNSC, saying global institutions like the UN need to open up to the present day geo-political reality.

Delivering the 16th Lalit Doshi memorial lecture, Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, said in the last 60 years, the strength of UN Security Council has expanded from 11 members out of 51 countries to just 15 members out of 192.

"Large part of the world is unrepresented and unheard. Europe which account for 5 per cent of the world population has 33 per cent of the seats. There is a clear need to expand the Security council," he said, adding the General Assembly also needs to be strengthened.

He also advocated the need to bring about reforms in global financial institutions because "presently they reflect the reality of a vanished era".

Tharoor stressed the need to bring about parity between developed countries and developing countries. "Developing countries should be given a voice in overseeing global governance," he said.

According to him, India has a role to play in global governance.

Tharoor felt that foreign policy is about fulfilling domestic objectives. "Terrorism is a tragic blight of our time which could be minimised if economic opportunities are given to the youth since the fertile recruiting ground is unemployed young men," he added.

PTI

First Published: Friday, August 06, 2010, 22:52

Comments

Nobody - Timbaktoo
india with its exhibition of open corruptness should be boycotted from all wordly institutions. there should be sanctions against india particularly with the so called leaders who are nothing but white collared criminals. then only the younsters in india will wake up and do something to root out these 75+ old anpads at the helm.

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Murugesan - Bahrain
india deserves to be in the security council. but so long as we remain a true democracy, with the current parliamentary system, we will never be able to arm twist the opponents and get into the security council.

powerful vested interests are at play and they will never let india in. we and our politicians will only be talking.

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Chi Cho - Tamil nadu
now the world is not ready to support india for un seat,as it has become mussolini state from gandhian state!india does not deserve a seat in un because of war crimes in srilanka

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Vivek Pattanayak - Bhubaneswar,India
five permanent members of the security council represent the victor powers of the second world war.although,france and china were no victor powers in true sense,they were given consolation prizes.since then britain has lost its empire and france its colonies .germany and japan have emerged as great economic power houses.soviet union has disintegrated and china is an emerging economic and military power.india,brazil and south africa are global emerging markets.the international power situation has clearly changed since the creation of united nations more than half a century ago.moreover,since the people ultimately matter in modern democratic global society more populous countries also more significant than countries with economic and military power.therefore,security council should be restructured taking into account new realities.

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abusulfi - london
ipl is not the end of the world.....his base is from un. he is a valuable intelectual, there is no question on his opinion about un. if he had enough support he would have become un secretary-general, and we can`t see him in the row of corrupted indian political leaders (it can be/it is a consipirancy to remove him from power, somebody needs it).

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PK - USA
to give such importance to a womanizer, an opportunist, and almost a corrupt person is having your head in the sand. were you all awake during this man`s checkered career. i wonder if he survived prosecution for being in the upper echelon. he should go live in dubai.

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John - Mumbai
this is not a new story, and infact this matter has been going on since 2004-5.
this call came from ministry of external affairs of india and not from shashi tharoor,who thinks he is a diplomat

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Dharmendra Goel - panchkula
sri shashi tharoor is a seasoned un. official and very thorough bred diplomat.he missed being the secretary general of uno by a whisker , a couple of yrs. ago. since then he donned the mantle of the indian state. he does all that with commendable forthrightness.
most indians, however, would like to hear from him as to what indians can do to increase their impact on the current global governance.

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Dr Rao - Cambridge
we should all be grateful to shashi tharoor for reigniting the issue of expansion of the security council.

another issue about security council is

a. britain, and france are too small to be on the council. they have a history of colonialism.
us has a history of exploding two nuclear weapons over civilians. russians were expansionists during the soviet era. china was kept out for a long time till us thought it was time to exploit its economic potential.

india should be on the security council

a. the largest democracy in the world and brought about the rapid downfall of colonialism
b. the nation with the second largest growth rate
c. india does lot of peace keeping in volatile regions in the world.
d. india is a responsible nuclear power and has no imperial ambitions

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Mohamamd - Kuwait
many dishonest people still working in different ministries ( many ghotalas ) and in politics but he is out does not mean he is corrupt.some of us even can not think whatever he has achieved in his life span because he is one of the intellectuals of our country and proven record of serving globally / international levels but a man of such a level failed in our democracy because he is not corrupt.