'Climate change, disaster management likely to be key during India’s G20 presidency'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that the universal sense of oneness will guide India as it formally took over the presidency of the G20, a bloc of the world's richest economies for the next one year. India will be holding around 200 events across 50 cities during its tenure - it will be hosting G20 leaders at the annual summit in September next year.

In an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18, Apurva Chandra, Secretary of Information & Broadcasting said climate change, startups and disaster management act are likely to be key agenda’s during India’s G20 presidency.

Chandra said, “The Prime Minister has given his vision of what India seeks to achieve during the G20. So we will be discussing a lot about the climate agenda. Also the availability of essentials like fertiliser, food, irrespective of political differences would be one of the issues. India will also be taking up the agenda of startups and disaster management. Startups is an area where India would like to showcase what we have done across the world. India has 106 unicorns, more than 80000 startups and so we would like the showcase the youth of our country.”

He added that India will also showcase its achievements in the form of UPI, e-rupee and Aadhaar.

“India would also like to showcase to the world, its UPI and payment systems, including e-rupee. The way transactions take place in UPI, if that can be emulated across the developing world, it will be one of the finest financial system which one can have seamlessly and without cost. Also Aadhaar is also a unique administrative innovation of India and which no other country has. Through Aadhaar we can identify anyone at the blink of an eye. So that is something that India would like to showcase during this G20 presidency,” Chandra added.

According to Chandra, it is a triumph of federalism that an event of this scale is being hosted across the country.