'Talks and terror can't go together' | Business Standard Column

'Talks and terror can't go together' | Business Standard Column

My VIEW:

Democratise
UN

This refers to the
excerpts from Sushma Swaraj’s recent UN speech published in Business Standard on October 4, 2015. While
issues raised in the speech will be deliberated and follow up action taken by the august organisation in due course, one built-in handicap of the
world body needs attention of UN’s well-wishers. That is structural and is
unlikely to be remedied by the organisation on its own. I am referring to the
undemocratic set up it has inherited because of the selfish interests of those
who first conceived the idea of United Nations.

If it is conceded that UN
is mandated to ensure peace on earth and promote the well-being of the world
population, it would be easier to agree on the need to democratise the
functioning of the world body. As regards resources, the golden rule should be ‘from
each what he can and to each what he needs’. To achieve this, the UN and its
member nations should consider the following proposals:

i)                  
UN should create a working fund by
receiving contributions each year from member nations, proportionate to the
purchase power parity adjusted value of the GDP of the contributing country previous
year.

ii)                
Voting power of each nation in the General
Assembly and in the Security Council should have some relationship with the
population of the member nation.

iii)              
Membership in the Security Council should
have geographical area and growth-related representation. This can be achieved
by quotas for ‘developed’, ‘developing’ and ‘backward’ countries, the
categories being decided on the basis of poverty level, per capita GDP etc.

M G Warrier,
Mumbai