President Pranab Mukherjee today stressed on the urgent need for all countries in the world to unite to fight against the menace of terrorism.
Noting that it is not easy to take on the terror on individual basis, the President said all the countries and the global governance institutions, like the United Nations, should work together to remove this menace from the world.
The President was delivering the valedictory address at the BSS-AFGG (Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance and Asian Forum on Global Governance) Reunion 2016, organised by Observer Research Foundation and ZEIT Stiftung Ebilin und Gerd Bucerius, Germany.
Talking to the 100-odd young leaders assembled from all over the world, the President preferred to speak extempore, leaving aside his written speech and expressed his pain at the growing violence of terror.
The President commended the role played the "cogent, powerful United Nations" which ensured that there were no world wars in the later part of the 20th century after its inception while the earlier part of 45 years saw two quick world wars.
However, the challenges of the UN today are many-fold, beyond the role of peace-keeping which it had done well, the President said, noting that it included fighting the increasing menace of terror, environment degradation, ensuring equity and justice to the poor and deprived and removing hunger. "All these challenges are staring at us," the President said.
The President said to meet these challenges and fulfil the aspirations of the people in the 21st century, it is necessary that the UN must reform.
"There are declared wars and undeclared wars, by terrorists, pirates, etc. India had suffered terror for a long time. It is not easy to fight terror on individual basis," he said, warning that "no country is safe now".
He said these terrorists have no ideals. "They want only destruction," he said appreciating the debates at the AFGG on global governance and the varied challenges and the role played by Dr Shashi Tharoor, the dean of the AFGG 2016 and now chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
"The UN absolutely requires to be reformed to reflect the realities of the world. The United Nations, Brettonwood Institutions, WTO have not come up to the expectations of the people of this century," the President told the young leaders as they heard him with rapt attention.
The President stressed that development goals are not enough, but what is required is sustainable development goals. He pointed out that despite India being a developing country where 400 million out of 1.82 billion people are still without electricity, India has signed two major agreements in the last 13 months - one on Sustainable Development Goals and another Paris Agreement on climate change.
"We took these decisions keeping the larger interests in mind, taking risks, India being an energy deficient country," he pointed out.
Dr Tharoor said the BSS forum was started in 2001 and Sachem Pilot and Rahall Gandhi were its alumni. Following the forum's tremendous success, the Asian version, AFGG, was started in 2011 with the joining together of BSS and ORF.
He told the President that young leaders from 33countries are taking part in this year's edition. In this re-union, there are leaders from over 50 countries, he said.
ORF Director Sun joy Joshi said the President during his frank talk has broad based the definition of security and made the young participants to think beyond the normal global governance goals.
The participants of the Forum are nominated by senior figures like heads of governments, ministries, CEOs of major companies, heads of universities etc, and came from diverse fields such as security, politics, diplomacy, academia, media, business, banking and civil society.
The theme of the forum this year was 'Navigating the New Normal' even as a new contest is emerging in Asia where a nascent multipolarity and an incipient multilaterism are engaged in a new conversation, a new adjustment, and are trying to discover a new pathway for beneficial co-existence.
Dr Tharoor has said "This is this region's biggest foreign policy test in this century described as the century of Asia. It is also its biggest economic challenge and if the resolution of this contest between multilateralism and multipolarity can be achieved, it is also Asia's biggest opportunity to finally reshape the world order and global governance itself.
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