S Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman to headline UK’s India Global Forum

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were on Tuesday confirmed as the headline speakers at a global event that will lay out India’s vision for post-pandemic growth.

India Global Forum, organised from London as a hybrid event between June 29 and July 1, will bring together a range of worldwide experts, including World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former CIA Director General David H. Petraeus, to cover India’s role in vaccine and medicine manufacturing as well as cooperation in crucial areas of climate change and an equitable global economic recovery.

From India, other senior ministers set to address a host of sessions include Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Women & Textiles Minister Smriti Irani.

“This year’s India Global Forum brings with it a sense of urgency and impatience about the radical actions needed now to shape a post-pandemic world,” said Manoj Ladwa, CEO of India Inc. Group, organisers of the forum.

“It’s where the big global issues of climate change, economic recovery and opportunity, digital transformation, and tackling new age imperialist and fundamentalist threats get debated,” he said.

In line with its “Future. Now. – Radical Actions for the Post Pandemic Era” theme, the sessions of the forum will cover Climate Action; Digital Future; Global Business; Economic Recovery; Health & HealthTech; Securing Supply Chains; and Global Leadership.

From views on how the post-pandemic build back of the global economy can be used to accelerate the transition to a better and safer world, to so-called “Covidonomics” of navigating huge new debts, unemployment and ongoing healthcare risk, the event is being pegged as the first chance for such a high-level worldwide forum as India gradually emerges from a devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.