India asks UN General Assembly to reclaim its stake

United Nations: India on Monday said the United States General Assembly should take the lead in setting the global agenda and also have a greater say in the selection and appointment of the United Nations secretary general.

"The (General) Assembly must have a greater say in the process of selection of the secretary general," India's permanent representative to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, said in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on the revitalisation of its work.

"The continued circumscribing of the Assembly's role and responsibilities in the process of selection and appointment of the secretary general needs to change in the interests of the United Nations system in general and the Assembly's prerogatives in particular," he said.

India joins the UN Security Council in January 2011 as a non-permanent member, after a gap of 19 years.

According to Puri, the issue of the General Assembly's revitalisation has now assumed particular significance and it was India's firm belief that this revitalisation could only be achieved when the General Assembly's role as the chief deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations was respected both in letter and in spirit.

"The General Assembly should take the lead in setting the global agenda and restoring the centrality of the United Nations in formulating multilateral approaches to resolving transnational issues," Puri said.