India not sitting UNSC permanent member 'not good' for the global body: EAM

India not sitting as a permanent member of the UN Security Council is "not good for us only but also not good for the global body and its transformation is overdue, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said here on Wednesday.

I was serious when I said I'm working on it, Jaishankar said.

He was responding to a question on how long it will take for India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Jaishankar was in a conversation with Columbia University Professor and Former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya at the Raj Centre at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

 

It's obviously a very hard task because at the end of the day, if you say what is a definition of our global order. The five permanent members are a very crucial definition of what the global order is about. So it's a very fundamental, very deep transformation that we are seeking.

We believe that transformation is overdue, because the UN is a product that was devised eighty years ago. And 80 years ago by any standards of human creativity is a long time ago. The number of independent countries have quadrupled in that period, Jaishankar said, adding that there are big parts of the world which are left out.

He said within a few years, India will be the third largest economy in the world, it will be the most populous society in the world.

To have such a country not there in the key global councils, obviously, it's not good for us, but I would also urge it's not good for the global Council in question, Jaishankar said.

I do believe that with each passing year, I sense in the world a greater and greater support for India to be there because we do command today the confidence and trust of very large parts of the world. I do not want to compare it with the current P5. But I would at least say a lot of countries perhaps think that we speak for them with a high degree of empathy and accuracy, he said.