India has rightful claim to UNSC membership : Naidu

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu on August 19, 2019, said that India, which represents one sixth of the global population, has a rightful claim to the permanent membership of the United Nation’s Security Council (UNSC) and thanked the Lithuanian Prime Minister for extending support to India on various multilateral fora.

On the third day of his tri-nation Baltic tour, the Vice President met with the Prime Minister of Lithuania Saulius Skvernelis, the Speaker of the Seimas (Parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania Viktoras Pranckietis and addressed the India-Lithuania business forum before emplaning for Riga, Latvia, where he addressed the Indian community in the evening.

During his interaction with Prime Minister  Saulius Skvernelis, the Vice President stressed the need for enlarging and democratising the UN Security Council. He sought Lithuania’s support for India’s claim for permanent membership of the Security Council.

Observing that terror has become a big global menace and is the enemy of mankind, Naidu called for early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) by the UN, which was mooted by India in the UN in 1996. He said that the cooperation between the parliamentarians of the two nations should be enhanced for promoting peace, prosperity and well being of the people of the two countries.

Stating that both the countries enjoyed close cultural ties, he appreciated  Lithuanian Universities for promoting Indology studies and also expressed his happiness over the publication of Comparative Dictionary of 108 Common Lithuanian and Sanskrit words and ‘History of Lithuania’ in Hindi.

Earlier, addressing India-Lithuania Business Forum the Vice President urged Lithuanian businessmen to tap the immense opportunities in India, which has a rising middle class market comparable to the European Union.He said that India was the 6th largest economy in the world and evolving into a US $ 5 trillion economy by the year 2024-25.  “To achieve this end, India requires approximately US $ 292 billion in new investments every year,”, he added.

Referring to the huge demographic advantage offered by India with youth under 35 years comprising about 60% of its 1.3 billion population, he said that India has undertaken an ambitious plan to build next-generation infrastructure including 100 Smart Cities, airports, high-speed trains, highways, and cyber connectivity, according to a PIB release.

Naidu also referred to rapid growth in construction of national highways and the ambitious plans to develop more than a 100 rivers as national waterways and added: “These programmes will vastly improve connectivity, and prove as catalysts for industrialization and to take our trade and investment to a new level.”

Naidu also told them that India was also focusing on renewable sources to generate energy and planning to achieve 40 per cent of its energy from non-fossil sources by 2030 and increase its renewable energy capacity to 175 GW by 2022.