Raisina Dialogue 2021: Jaishankar stresses on South-South cooperation, humanitarian assistance

New Delhi [India], April 13 : External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday stressed on South-South cooperation, humanitarian assistance, disaster resistance in the virtual meeting of Raisina Dialogue 2021 here.
"South-South cooperation has been around for a while. With greater globalisation, it is important to change those fancy words into practical initiatives," said Jaishankar.
Lauding Indian effort in providing COVID-19 vaccinations across the world, he said, "Even before the pandemic, India has been providing humanitarian assistance, disaster resistance to all. We have demonstrated in a practical manner, our belief that the world is a family."
India has so far provided COVID-19 vaccines to 83 countries and the total number of vaccines exported is 6.45 crore under Vaccine Maitri initiative.
Vaccine Maitri is a humanitarian initiative undertaken by India to provide Made-in-India COVID-19 vaccines to countries around the world. The government had started providing the vaccines to other countries in January this year.
Jaishankar had told Rajya Sabha last month that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Vaccine Maitri' initiative, under which India has supplied COVID-19 vaccines to over 70 nations, has raised the country's standing and generated great international goodwill.
The Raisina Dialogue is India's flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics, held annually since 2016. It is jointly organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also participate in the 6th edition of the Raisina Dialogue with President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame and Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen in the joint inaugural session as chief guests.
The Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, will also participate in the conference, in one of the subsequent sessions.
The theme for the 2021 Edition is "#ViralWorld: Outbreaks, Outliers and Out of Control".
Over the course of four days -- April 13-16, 2021 -- the Dialogue, will have panel conversations on five thematic pillars - "WHOse Multilateralism? Reconstructing the UN and Beyond; Securing and Diversifying Supply Chains; Global 'Public Bads': Holding Actors and Nations to Account; Infodemic: Navigating a 'No-Truth' World in the Age of Big Brother; The Green Stimulus: Investing in Gender, Growth, and Development," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
The event will also see the presence of Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister of Sweden; Anthony Abbott, Former Prime Minister of Australia, and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand. The Foreign Ministers of Portugal, Slovenia, Romania, Singapore, Nigeria, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Australia, Kenya, Chile, Maldives, Iran, Qatar, and Bhutan will also participate.
The 2021 edition will have 50 sessions with the participation of 150 speakers from 50 countries and multilateral organisations. More than 2,000 attendees have pre-registered from over 80 countries and a large number of participants are likely to join the Dialogue through various social media platforms.