UK invites PM Modi to attend G7 Summit 2021, event to be held in June

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday has been invited by the United Kingdom to attend the G7 Summit as a guest this year. The summit will be held in Cornwall, Southwest England from June 11 to 13. It will be hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson where he will address shared challenges like the Coronavirus and climate change. Other than India, Australia and South Korea also invited as guest countries to attend the G7 Summit to 'deepen the expertise and experience around the table.'

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The UK will use the G7 Presidency to unite leading democracies to 'help the world build back better from coronavirus' and 'create a greener', more prosperous future, said an official statement of the British high commission.

The statement further read, "As ‘pharmacy of the world’, India already supplies more than 50% of the world’s vaccines, and the UK and India have worked closely together throughout the pandemic. Our Prime Ministers speak regularly and Prime Minister Johnson has said he will visit India ahead of the G7."

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The UK PM’s motive is to use the G7 to intensify cooperation between the world’s democratic and technologically advanced nations. Between them, the 10 leaders represent over 60% of the people living in democracies around the world.

British PM cancels visit to India 

As per the official statement, Johnson has confirmed that he will visit India ahead of the summit. Earlier, He had accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to attend India’s Republic Day celebration, however, he later called it off amid the fresh mutant Coronavirus spread.  

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On December 15, 2020, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had formally invited India to attend the G7 Summit in 2021, following his bilateral meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar last year. Raab had said that he is “pleased” to extend the invite and said Britain is ‘looking forward’ to taking the spot in the summit and the G7 presidency along with the leadership of the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference. The British foreign secretary had relayed UK’s ‘commitment’ to building a stronger defense system as well as a security partnership with India which would further help both the nations in tackling the common concerns including terrorism, privacy in the Western Indian Ocean.

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