Russian Foreign Minister arrives in New Delhi for G20 Summit

 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday arrived in India to attend the G20 Summit scheduled to be held in New Delhi on September 9,10.

The Russian Foreign Minister will be attending the summit on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently had a telephone conversation with the Russian President in which the two leaders reviewed progress in bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual concern.

President Putin conveyed his inability to attend the G20 Summit in New Delhi and informed that Russia would be represented by the country’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a PMO release said.

Expressing an understanding for Russia’s decision, PM Modi thanked President Putin for Russia’s consistent support to all initiatives under India’s G20 Presidency, it said.

“The two leaders reviewed progress on a number of issues of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual concern, including the recently concluded BRICS Summit in Johannesburg,” the release said.

The two leaders agreed to remain in touch.

Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said, "The coming together of the 41 Heads of delegations, Heads of State/Govt, Heads of international organisations in India, starting yesterday is under PM's personal leadership and direction. It is essentially a celebration of the coming together of the G 20 family...This is the largest-ever participation of the Global South in India."

India assumed the G20 presidency on December 1 last year and about 200 meetings related to G20 were organized in 60 cities across the country.

The 18th G20 Summit will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil societies.

One of the takeaways of India’s G20 presidency is the revolutionization of Digital Payment Infrastructure, as initially very few people knew about it, but it has taken forward extensively, G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Friday.

He further said that the digital payment infrastructure has been widely accepted as a way to bring financial inclusion.

Addressing the pre-summit briefing, Kant said, “When India started the G20 Presidency, very few people knew about Digital Payment Infrastructure and the open source model of it. This has been extensively taken forward, by both the Finance track and Sherpa track in a very rigorous manner. Digital Payment Infrastructure, has broadly been accepted as…the way to bring financial inclusion. This is the way to do fast payments, this is the way to drive the innovation of the future”.