Heights of diplomacy

Against the odds, the G20 summit reached a consensus on the Leaders’ Declaration in New Delhi on the first day of the two-day meeting, offering a clear indication of current geopolitical alignments and adding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stature as a global leader. To be sure, the much-awaited statement on the Ukraine war reflected a significant dilution from the condemnatory language of the Bali Declaration, which Foreign Minister S Jaishankar explained as a reflection of changed geopolitical circumstances. The Bali Declaration repeated the language of a majority UN vote deploring “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine”. The Delhi Declaration deployed oblique