UNSC reforms must be implemented within fixed timeframe: PM

Describing the Security Council as a product of "circumstances of a bygone era", Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told UN chief Ban Ki-moon that the Council must include India to make it more representative and the reforms must be implemented within a fixed timeframe. "Whatever we seek to do as the United Nations, from dealing with the transformed security environment to ensuring the effective implementation of the post-2015 Development Agenda, our relevance and effectiveness will depend in large measure on the internal reform of the United Nations, especially its Security Council," Modi said in a letter to the UN Secretary General. "This is one of the most urgent and important, even if difficult tasks before us," Modi said in the letter dated July 4. The letter was made available by India's Permanent Mission to the UN during a press briefing here yesterday. Modi arrives at the world body's headquarters in about a week to address the high-level Sustainable Development Summit on September 25. The Indian leader said that the Security Council, as constituted currently, is the product of circumstances of a "bygone era".

"It must now reflect the realities and needs of the 21st century. A Security Council that includes the world's largest democracy, major locomotives of the global economy, and voices from all the major continents, will carry greater credibility and legitimacy and will be more representative and effective," he wrote. As the UN commemorates its 70th anniversary this year, Modi said that "we are at a moment when we must close the endless debates of the past two and a half decades, and agree in a democratic manner in the United Nations General Assembly to set into motion the long needed reforms in the United Nations Security Council to be implemented with the broadest possible support and within a fixed timeframe."