India criticises U.N. over financial crisis

New York, Oct 7 (PTI) India has sharply criticised the
United Nations and its affiliated organisations for sitting on
the sidelines as the current financial crisis unfolded, saying
that the I.M.F. remained helpless despite the economic
meltdown impacting adversely on the developing nations.

India called on the world body to use its universality
to coordinate an international response, which is crucial to
overcoming the crisis.

During a discussion on the annual report of U.N. chief
Ban Ki-moon, Indian Ambassador Nirupam Sen attacked the
Secretariat for ignoring the economic crisis that is now
"crushing" the poor around the globe and for lacking any
vision for the future or how the organisation could help
developing countries deal with the serious looming challenges.

While the world had not ended, the world of Wall
Street had certainly ended, and the "Masters of the Universe
had bitten the dust, the same dust that is now in the mouths
of the rest of us," Sen said, adding that the free market,
like free love, had come to an end.

He branded the report, which gives snapshot of U.N.
work in development, human rights and other areas and its
vision for future, as "inadequate if not irrelevant".

Sen told delegations gathered for the Assembly's
annual review that the document should have spelled out how
the U.N. could rebuild the global political and economic
institutions.

The report, he said, also remained silent on
intellectual property rights and how the organisation could
stimulate the stalled Doha Round of talks being held under the
auspices of the World Trade Organisation, another institution
"approaching irrelevance."

Sen emphasised that the Secretary-General's report was
a summary of events that had taken place in the past and did
not provide a vision for the future.

The investment banking world, he said, has achieved
the destruction of world liquidity, and has increased
financial risks and bankruptcies.

"The impact on the developing world would be profound.
Projects are already stopping because of the lack of liquidity
and financing. The debt crisis would become worse. The decline
in commodity prices and exports would hurt the developing
world," he said, calling it "a solidarity of suffering".

Only an international response could overcome the
crisis, which was impacting the real economy in widening
circles, he told the delegates.

The problem with the U.N. chief's report, Sen said, is
that it did not discuss those issues or how the United Nations
could rebuild the global economic and political institutions.

"The International Monetary Fund has been helpless and
practically irrelevant during the crisis, and that irrelevancy
could not be addressed until the international community faced
its fundamental reform issues, such as transparency and quota
reform in the I.M.F."

The report was silent on that issue and others, Sen
said, criticising the absence of recent and relevant
statistics in the document.

The report touched on public goods, climate change,
public health and other pressing issues, yet it did not look
at the problems in intellectual property rights laws, he said.

It was also silent on what the United Nations could do
to stimulate the stalled Doha Round of W.T.O. talks and the
important issues of trade in cotton, sensitive products and
safeguard mechanisms.

"The W.T.O. was fast approaching irrelevance like the
Bretton Woods institutions," he said and called on the U.N. to
use its universality to address the present crises.