External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be visiting New York during India’s Presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and will be presiding over two high-level signature events on August 18 and 19. The first event on August 18 will be an open debate on ‘Protecting the Protectors: Technology and Peacekeeping’ while the second event on August 19 will be a high-level briefing on ‘Threats to International Peace and Security caused by Terrorist Acts’. Both these topics are priorities for India during its UNSC innings.
His visit to New York is taking place in the backdrop of the Taliban’s rapid onslaught in Afghanistan and the issue is likely to figure in his talks with UN officials. India began its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the UNSC on January 1 and it is holding the presidency of the powerful body for the month of August.
“The Open Debate on Peacekeeping will focus on the theme of ‘Protecting the Protectors’, including through the use of modern technological tools to enhance the safety and security of Peacekeepers and to aid Peacekeeping Missions to effectuate their mandates effectively and efficiently. In this regard, India, in collaboration with the UN, would be rolling out the UNITE AWARE Platform, which is a situational awareness software programme that allows a Peacekeeping Operations Centre to visualise and analyze the ground situation in a conflict zone on a real time basis,” an official statement by Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reads.
This project aims to demonstrate the impact of modern surveillance technology on the detection of asymmetric threats. The aim is to improve camp security for UN peacekeepers, the overall security situation, and quality of situational awareness, it added.
India has partnered with the United Nations to roll out the UNITE Aware platform initially in four UN Peacekeeping Missions: MUNISMA (Mali), UNMISS (South Sudan), UNFICYP (Cyprus) and AMISOM (Somalia).
An MoU between the India government and the UN in support to the ‘Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping’ initiative is expected to be signed during the visit.
“The executing agencies for this MoU would be the Center for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK – on the Indian side) and UN C4ISR Academy for Peace Operations (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaisance) based in Entebbe (Uganda) on the UN’s side,” the MEA said.
On August 19, Jaishankar would preside over a briefing session on the six-monthly report of the UN Secretary General on the threat posed by ISIL/Da’esh, under the agenda item “Threats to International Peace and Security caused by Terrorist Acts”.
During this visit, he would also have bilateral meetings with foreign ministers of other Member States on the sidelines of these UNSC high-level events.
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