Ansari to leave tomorrow for NAM Summit in Venezuela

Vice President Hamid Ansari will embark on a visit to Venezuela tomorrow to attend the 17th NAM Summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi not going for the meeting of the Cold War-era bloc.
Modi is only the second Indian Prime Minister to give a NAM Summit a miss after Charan Singh in 1979.
The summit, which started yesterday and will end on September 18, is taking place in Venezuela's Margarita Island and has meetings scheduled in three consecutive segments -- meeting of senior officials, foreign ministers meeting and a conference of heads of state and government.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit is expected to bring together leaders from the 120 developing countries that are its members. The NAM Summits have been among the largest gatherings of countries, after the United Nations.

"The summit is expected to deliberate on issues of contemporary relevance and concern such as terrorism, UN reforms, the situation in West Asia, threats to peace and security, UN peacekeeping operations, climate change, sustainable development, economic governance, south-south cooperation, refugees and migrants, and nuclear disarmament," a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said.
"All these issues are of relevance in the context of the discussions that will take place at the United Nations in coming months," it said.

NAM is also an important forum for interaction with partner countries across continents, including from Africa, Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs), with whom India has long-standing development partnerships in a spirit of south-south cooperation, the statement said.

"NAM continues to represent space for action in pursuance of the collective interests of the developing world, along with the G-77, especially on subject such as the reform of the global economic system and disarmament. At the United Nations, the NAM is an influential grouping on a range of issues such as UN peacekeeping and disarmament," it said.
India has a close bilateral engagement with Venezuela, the host of the 17th NAM Summit.
Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez had led a high-level delegation to India last month when she had personally extended the invitation to India to attend the NAM Summit. She had also held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the visit.

Talking about the situation in insurgency-hit areas,
Ansari said alienation, both at the community and group level was increasing.
He said the quality of life in rural and urban areas, except for the affluent, has deteriorated with the gap between the haves and have-nots widening.
He also referred to a constitutional authority few years back depicting the rule of law as under siege on account of "cancerous developments eating into the fabric" of the three organs of the State - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
The Vice President also quoted various government and parliamentary reports referring to multifaceted internal security challenges facing India which included Left wing extremism, ongoing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir, insurgency in some states in the northeast and organised crime.

He said another aspect of internal security which was very much on the public mind, related to social cohesion and that threats to it emanated from sporadic instances of caste, communal or other instances of social disharmony.
Ansari said 201 of 535 districts in India were affected by one form of violence or the other, and as a result, many in the public were losing faith in the system, in the ability of the law enforcement agencies and the judicial system to provide justice.
The Vice President also quoted sociologist TK Oommen, who had argued "since insecurity manifests itself in genocide, culturocide and ecocide, a society free from them may be conceptualised as a secure society."

Ansari said the focus had to be on the rule of law, accountability of state action, and the principles to which the Indian state subscribes to deal with negative trends of internal security.
"This would require an adjustment in our approach to security management," he said.
Speaking at the event, Subrahmanyam's son and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said security was always viewed holistically by his father who was deeply convinced that economic growth, technology absorption, skilling human resources and social modernisation were central to India's security.
Subrahmanyam was considered a doyen of India's strategic affairs community and a prominent figure in shaping its nuclear policy.