QUAD leaders Summit with PM Modi, Biden, Suga & Morrison to hold 1st meet today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with United States President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will join each other for a virtual summit of the Quadrilateral Framework (QUAD) on Friday.

During the QUAD meeting, the leaders from four nations, inducing India, Australia, and Japan, will be discussing a range of international issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, prevailing economic crisis, and climate change, the White House said. Press secretary Jen Psaki told the reporters at her daily news conference that US President Joe Biden’s choice of making Quad one of his earliest multilateral engagements “speaks to the importance we [US] place on close cooperation with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific”.  

The leaders would also be discussing regional and global issues of shared interest. They will exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. The Summit will provide an opportunity to exchange views on contemporary challenges such as resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security, and climate change.

PM Modi-PM Suga talk ahead of QUAD summit

On March 9, PM Modi had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister of Japan Suga Yoshihide where the two leaders reaffirmed the importance of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and raised concerns over China's unilateral attempts to change the status quo. Matters pertaining to the situation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and the current political crisis in Myanmar were also brought up by the Prime Ministers during the conversation. 

What is QUAD? 

QUAD or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue officially came into being in 2007, when the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with leaders of the United States, Japan, and Australia on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum summit. The four leaders had decided to meet for an exploratory meeting, which became the first and the only meeting to take place between leaders of QUAD 1.0.