Revision as of 09:21, 19 November 2020

Election to UN agencies, commissions etc

Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions

2020: Indian elected

November 8, 2020: The Times of India

Indian on panel that holds UN purse strings

NEW DELHI: In what is seen as a significant achievement, Indian diplomat Vidisha Maitra has been elected to a key United Nations committee that controls the financial and budgetary purse of the world body.

Official sources said the government sees the development as important as it comes just when India is preparing to take over as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the next two years.

Maitra was India’s candidate for the only post in the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) from the Asia Pacific Group. The other candidate was from Iraq.

India has been a member of the committee since its inception in 1946. The committee is one of the most coveted in the UN system as it controls its financial and budgetary purse.

“ACABQ performs several functions including the examination of the budget submitted by the UN secretary-general to the General Assembly and advising the Assembly on administrative and budgetary matters referred to it. ACABQ is a crucial component in ensuring that resources of the member-states are used to good effect and that mandates are properly funded,” said a source.

Members are elected by the General Assembly, consisting of 193 member-states, on the basis of broad geographical representation, personal qualifications and experience and serve for a period of three calendar years. Members serve in a personal capacity and not as representatives of member-states, added the source.

Maitra is a career diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service and currently posted as first secretary in permanent mission of India to UN in New York. She has served in various capacities in New Delhi, Paris, Port Louis and New York over the last 11 years. “She has extensive work experience in strategic policy planning and research, formulation and implementation of development assistance and infrastructure projects, defence acquisition matters, international taxation issues, investment and trade promotion,” said a source.

Vidisha Maitra’s selection in this committee is seen as crucial as the country will also be in the UNSC as non-permanent member for the next two years.

UN Commission on the Status of Women

2020: India defeats China

India defeats China in UN poll, September 16, 2020: The Times of India

In a significant victory, India got elected as member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the principal global body focussed on gender equality and women empowerment, beating China in a hotly-contested election. While India got 38 votes of the 54 cast, China managed 27.

Indians in the United Nations bureaucracy

2018: Atul Khare, Nikhil Seth, Satya S. Tripathi

Indian appointed UN Assistant Secretary-General; will head NY environment office, August 28, 2018: The Times of India

UNITED NATIONS: Development and environment expert Satya S. Tripathi has been appointed an assistant Secretary-General and will head the UN Environment Programme's New York office.

The appointment made by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was announced by his Spokesperson Stephane Guterres.

Tripathi is now the third Indian at the senior levels of the UN hierarchy.

He has served the UN for 20 years in "Europe, Asia and Africa on strategic assignments in sustainable development, human rights, democratic governance and legal affairs," Dujarric said.

Tripathi has been the Senior Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the UNEP since 2017.

A development economist and lawyer with over 35 years of experience, one of his key roles at the UN was as the UN Recovery Coordinator for the $7 billion post-tsunami and post-conflict recovery efforts in Aceh and Nias in Indonesia.

He also chaired the Committees on Laws and Treaties for the UN-mediated Cyprus unification talks in 2004.

Tripathi has commerce and law bachelors degrees and a masters in law from Behrampur University in Odisha.

Atul Khare, the Under-Secretary-General who heads the Department of Operational Services, is the senior-most Indian at the UN.

Nikhil Seth, the Executive Director of UN Institute for Training and Research, is at the level of an assistant Secretary-General according to last year's Voluntary Public Disclosure listing of senior staff's assets.

At the New York office of UNEP, Tripathi's duties will include supporting development, coordination and implementation of system-wide strategies on environment for the UN and "catalysing transformative change" throughout the UN "to integrate the environmental dimension of peace, security and sustainable development," according to the description of the post.

Security Council

Permanent membership and Nehru

DP Srivastava, May 15, 2019: The Times of India

Over past few years, a number of articles have appeared on the offer of permanent membership of UN Security Council to India in the 1950s. I discovered, as director in the Ministry of External Affairs, the original file on the subject in 1995, which included internal deliberations of the period. It was put up to me for orders for destruction, as part of a routine exercise of ‘weeding out’ old files. Realising its importance, i brought it to the attention of my seniors. I also wrote a letter to our UN mission in New York. My letter was later circulated to our missions in P-5 capitals. In response, our Moscow mission forwarded more information on the subject. I had suggested that the file be declassified and transferred to the National Archives as it had no operational significance.

Without going into details of the file at this stage, we can revisit the issue on the basis of considerable material declassified since then. This includes records of Nehru’s exchanges with Soviet leaders in 1955, and Vijayalakshmi Pandit’s correspondence with her brother earlier during her tenure as Indian ambassador to the US. The file on the question referred to the Soviet offer of the mid-50s. Papers on the earlier offer are available in the Vijayalakshmi Pandit collection in the Nehru Memorial Library. Anton Harder of the Woodrow Wilson Center has published a research paper on the subject.

While the Soviet offer was for India to be inducted as sixth permanent member, the earlier US offer was for India to replace China in the Security Council. Nehru and Krishna Menon suspected the American offer as a Western ploy to set India against China, and therefore were opposed to it. The Soviet offer of India joining as a sixth permanent member did not pose any such dilemma.

Nehru’s Selected Works contain a record of Nehru’s discussions with Russian Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin on the subject: Bulganin: “While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India’s inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council ...”

Nehru: “Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it …”

Bulganin: “We proposed the question of India’s membership of the Security Council to get your views, but agree that this is not the time for it and it will have to wait for the right moment later on …”

Pandit Nehru did not respond to Bulganin’s suggestion to include India as a sixth permanent member; his reply was in the context of an earlier American proposal for India to replace China. Bulganin could not have been part of any Western ploy. Induction as sixth member would have finessed the issue of Chinese representation. Bulganin agreed not to push the matter after Nehru unequivocally rejected Bulganin’s offer. This cannot be interpreted to suggest the Soviet offer was not serious. We cannot expect our friends to push our cause if we did not see their offer was in our interest.

To put a bilateral understanding into effect a Charter amendment was needed. The Charter envisaged a General Conference before the tenth annual session of the General Assembly, or the proposal to be placed on the agenda of the session of the UN General Assembly. This deadline was fast approaching in 1956. In a parallel move, the Latin American group had inscribed an item on the agenda of 11th UN General Assembly in 1956. Though this was for expansion of non-permanent members category, the scope could have been widened to cover expansion of permanent members category, or a separate agenda item inscribed on the subject. Even if no immediate decision was reached, this would have kept Indian candidature alive for a later date.

The US proposal for permanent membership for India pre-dates the Soviet proposal. Vijayalakshmi Pandit, as India’s US ambassador, reported to Nehru in August 1950 about a move in the State Department to replace China with India as a permanent member in the Security Council. She said, “Dulles seemed particularly anxious that a move in this direction should be started.” She described the episode in derisive terms as being “cooked up in the State Department”, and advised her American interlocutors “to go slow in the matter as it would not be received with any warmth in India”. Nehru agreed with his sister’s view in his reply, as otherwise it would mean “some kind of break between us and China”.

Nehru’s anxiety not to disturb India’s relations with China did not prevent deterioration of relations in the next decade. This was not the result of American machinations, but Chinese aggression.

UN processes take time. No decision could be reached in 11th UN General Assembly session. The Charter amendment to expand the Security Council from 11 to 15 took place only in 1965. The Indian political leadership refused to pursue Indian candidature at the outset. It would take more than two decades to revive discussions on expansion of the Security Council in the 1990s. These are still inconclusive. Any future Charter amendment for India’s inclusion would be subject to Chinese veto. The Masood Azhar case underlines the difficulty.

The People’s Republic of China replaced Taiwan in the UN in 1971. They exercised their first veto over admission of Bangladesh to the UN in August 1972 to neutralise India’s geo-political gains during the 1971 war. The file on the offer of permanent membership should be traced and declassified. The nation has a right to know.

The writer, a former diplomat, has headed the MEA’s UN desk