India has achieved a hat-trick of electoral victories at the United Nations ahead of the 75th session of the General Assembly, which will be held practically due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
India beat China to win a four-year term on the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CWS), a prestigious wing of the world body’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
India also won one seat each, through endorsements, for two other ECOSOC bodies: the Program and Coordination Committee (CPC) and the Population and Development Commission (CPD).
The terms will begin in 2021 when India will also begin its two-year term on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.
“India wins a seat in the prestigious #ECOSOC body!” TS Tirumurti, India’s permanent representative to the UN, announced in a tweet on Monday.
“India elected Member of the Commission on the Status of Women #CSW. It is a resounding endorsement of our commitment to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women in all of our efforts ”.
On Tuesday, K Nagaraj Naidu, the deputy permanent representative, announced the elections for the other two bodies in a follow-up tweet. “India is elected to three #ECOSOC bodies,” he wrote.
India, Afghanistan and China were in the fray for the two CWS seats of the Asia-Pacific group. With the 54 members of the Economic and Social Council voting, Afghanistan and India were elected with 39 and 38 votes respectively. China finished with 27, one down from the cutoff count of 28.
Others who also passed were Argentina, Austria, the Dominican Republic, Israel, Latvia, Nigeria, Turkey and Zambia.
The CWS is the world’s leading intergovernmental body dedicated exclusively to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. It was established in June 1946 as a functional commission of the Economic and Social Council.
The CPC is the main subsidiary body of ECOSOC and the UN General Assembly for planning, programming and coordination. The CPD describes itself as a functional commission that assists ECOSOC in the implementation of the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development.
The General Assembly kicked off its historic session on Tuesday, but general debates, which are scheduled to begin on September 22, will take place virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
New York, where the UN is based, was the hardest hit city in the world, although things are much better now.
The leaders of the member states will address the assembly through prerecorded videos, which will be presented in the debate by their respective delegations. Other meetings of the world body will follow the same format.
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