SUSHMA Swaraj Arrives In NY To Lead India’s Delegation In The UNGA

MINISTER For External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has arrived in New York to lead the India’s delegation in the United Nations General Assembly .After calling on PORTUS Donald John Trump, she is excited and said that The President has conveyed his good wishes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He called PM Modi his friend, the seasoned politician quoted Trump as saying. India hopes that the United States will continue to be friendly with the world’s largest functioning democracy despite differences on several issues. Meanwhile, asked about India’s agenda for the UNGA, New Delhi’s Permanent Representative in the multi-national-body Syed Akbaruddin says let Pakistan be a “one-trick pony” on Kashmir if it wants to. The United  Nations  works best on the basis of multilateralism and “India’s positions based on partnerships get a great resonance”, he said  at a news conference. He was replying to a reporter’s query about the possibility of Pakistan raising Kashmir at the UNGA as in the previous years. He said: “If somebody else would like to be a one-trick pony, it is for them to regurgitate that act. We’ve handled this act many times in the past and are confident we’ll do so again.””Solo players in a multilateral context have neither a past nor a future” and get “no resonance in such matters”, he added. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Islamabad would bring up Kashmir at the UNGA and give “unequivocal support to the cause”, Radio Pakistan has reported. Pakistan has been raising Kashmir at all UN forums, regardless of the topic of the meetings, but no other country has joined it in making it an issue or even talking about it. During the 2017 UNGA meeting, Pakistani zeal produced a major embarrassment when its Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi was witnessed even by reporters while trying to pass off a picture of a wounded Palestinian girl as a Kashmiri. Akbaruddin said that even when India talks about terrorism, it does not treat it as just a bilateral issue but deals with it in the international context of havoc it wreaks around the world, for example the Boko Haram in Africa, and terrorist groups elsewhere. India will focus on five topics: reformed multilateralism, climate change action, health, development and peacekeeping, he said. She will be assisted by Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda. Nadda will also represent the country at a high-level event on Ending Tuberculosis and on Non-Communicable Diseases. Sushma Swaraj is scheduled to address the UNGA on Saturday at the morning session scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Listed as the fifth speaker, she will likely speak around 7.15 p.m IST .Qureshi’s speech is set for Saturday’s afternoon session, which will give him an opportunity to react to Sushma Swaraj’s address. If he raises issues relating to India, the nation would have a right to  reply which could take place towards the end of that session or Monday’s session.