Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar made a veiled attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while addressing the Indian diaspora in Geneva. Life is not “khata-khat” (an easy job) and it requires hard work, he said, spoofing a remark of the Leader of Opposition ahead of the last general elections.
He referred to Rahul Gandhi’s pre-poll remark where the latter said he would solve issues “khata-khat” if voted to power.
“Until we develop the human resources, it requires hard work, until you build the infrastructure, until you have those policies. So life is not ‘khata-khat’. Life is hard work. Life is diligence. Anybody who’s held a job and laboured at it, knows it. So that’s my message to you, that we have to work hard at it,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying by ANI.
Jaishankar said India needs to develop manufacturing if it plans to become a major powerhouse in future.
“Ask yourself, can you actually be a major power in the world without manufacturing? Because a major power needs technology. Nobody can develop technology without developing manufacturing,” the Indian Minister said.
Jaishankar said when he meets world leaders they have shown their interest in knowing what is happening in India.
“We do the foreign policy, but that’s the professional part of it. But they are enormously interested, actually, in what is happening in India,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying.
” That other countries today look with deep interest, they may not be able to exactly copy it, but somewhere in what we are doing there are lessons for the rest of the world,” he said hinting at the development India has achieved in the past 10 years ever since PM Narendra Modi came to power in New Delhi.
Jaishankar visited Geneva from September 12 to September 13.
EAM in Geneva
During his visit, the EAM interacted with the leadership of International Organisations in Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, and the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
He shared India’s approach to multilateralism, perspectives on the evolution of human rights, current global human rights situation, and ways to address various challenges to the human rights ecosystem.
He also discussed ways to deepen cooperation in public health and promote Traditional Medicine systems globally.
The EAM dedicated the newly built state-of-the-art Permanent Mission of India in Geneva.
The EAM delivered a talk on “Global Tectonics: The Indian View of a World in Churn” at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), which was attended by a cross-section of people, including from the diplomatic community, academia, think tanks, student community and the Indian diaspora.
In a special gesture, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Daniele Giovanni Cassis hosted EAM in Geneva.
The two leaders held wide-ranging discussions on bilateral ties, with special focus on leveraging the Free Trade Agreement between India and EFTA States (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Principality of Liechtenstein) to boost trade and investments.
The leaders also discussed global and regional issues of mutual interest.
