JGU hosts Ram Madhav in Capital Talk Lecture Series

JGU organised the inaugural ‘Capital Talks: A Thought Leadership Series’ in March with Dr Ram Madhav, President India Foundation delivering a lecture titled ‘India & The World – A Perspective of Bharat’.

In his speech, Dr Madhav said, “Today, we notice that there is a perceptible decline in the influence of the Western powers. The West will remain a very powerful bloc, especially countries like America will remain technological leaders, economic leaders in the world, but in the entire world which is now shaping up, you will probably not see any unipolarity. Then there is the rise of China. A perceptible rise of China, despite certain contemporary challenges it is facing in terms of its economic stagnation etc., is an important development in this century. It has become almost as big an economy as America today in terms of GDP figures. Today, there are a growing number of flashpoints in the world indicating a new cold war like situation which countries don’t admit for tactical reasons. Leaders of smaller countries feel this pressure to take sides, that itself indicates that there is a growing cold war-like situation in the in the world through multiple flash points that are occurring right now. Then we see the rise of a few middle powers. Multiple independent powers at the middle level are growing. When I say middle powers, I’m not just talking about countries alone. There are a number of mini laterals emerging. They’re strong groups. What we see include Shanghai Cooperation Organization, EU or ASEAN. These small groups of countries are trying to emerge as important power blocks in the world.”

Dr Ram Madhav explained that today, there is a decline of global multilateral institutions created after the World War II. The United Nations is far less influential. And from India’s point of view, we have made it very clear that unless important reforms are effected to the institutions, they will continue to become less important in the world. On the other hand, big tech corporations are emerging as major power players in the world…. We are living in a heteropolar reality. We have now have entered into a very major tech era. This is a very frontier type of tech like artificial intelligence…. Climate change is a much talked about issue. This climate change will lead to displacement of 1.2 billion people in the next 10 years. Imagine the pressure that it is going to cause especially on countries in Europe, because there will be displacement in Africa and in many island nations in the world. So it is going to cause major human suffering and that will lead to so many consequences for which we have to be prepared. At the same time, there is the decreasing influence of the dollar and dollar-based trading…. So we are entering into a multi-currency system today. And lastly, very interestingly, there is a return of strong national identities in different parts of the world which is a geopolitical reality.”

Welcoming Dr Ram Madhav to the inaugural lecture under the Capital Talk Series, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor, JGU, spoke about the phenomenal growth of JGU in a span on 15 years and introduced the renowned politician to the discerning audience, “Widely regarded for his contributions in the field of strategic thinking, political philosophy and India’s foreign policy, Dr Madhav has been the curator of major annual global and national multilateral initiatives like the Indian Ocean Conference, the Dharma-Dhamma Conference, ASEAN-India Youth Summit and Counter Terrorism Conference. Most recently, Dr Madhav has been instrumental in ideating the Religon-20 Forum (R20) as part of G20 and his most recent book ‘Partitioned Freedom’ explores the untold history of India’s partition in 1947 and the birth of Pakistan.”

The inaugural Capital Talks Lecture concluded with a detailed discussion and interaction with the audience with Dr Madhav; Prof Sreeram Sundar Chaulia, Professor & Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs; Prof Mohan Kumar, Professor & Dean of the Office of International Affairs & Global Initiatives, Jindal School of International Affairs; and Ms. Ambreen Khan, Adjunct Professor of Practice & Director Media Outreach and Special Initiatives.

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