The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and approving any changes to the UN Charter. Its powers as outlined in the United Nations Charter include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. The UNSC is the only UN body with authority to issue resolutions that are binding on member states.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1969. It consists of 57 member states, 48 of which are Muslim-majority. The organisation claims to be "the collective voice of the Muslim world" and works to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony".
Maleeha Lodhi is a Pakistani diplomat, political scientist, and a former Pakistan's Representative to the United Nations. She was the first woman to hold the position. Previously, she served as Pakistan's envoy to the Court of St James' and twice as its ambassador to the United States.
Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations Security Council has undergone one reform, increasing its membership from 4 to 10 non-permanent members. Nonetheless, this first and only reform has not left the global community satisfied, which has since then relentlessly called for a more all-encompassing reform. Reform of the Security Council encompasses five key issues: categories of membership, the question of the veto held by the five permanent members, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods, and the Security Council-General Assembly relationship. Despite a common agreement amongst member states, regional groups and academics on the need for reform, its feasibility is compromised by the difficulty to find an approach that would please all parties. Any reform of the Security Council would require the agreement of at least two-thirds of United Nations member states in a vote in the General Assembly and must be ratified by two-thirds of Member States. All of the permanent members (P5) of the UNSC, which hold veto rights, must also agree.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is a Pakistani Islamic preacher and a militant convicted of terrorism. He co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization that is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Russia. He is listed on India's NIA Most Wanted. In April 2012, the United States placed a bounty of US$10 million on Saeed for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 civilians. While India officially supported the American move, there were protests against it in Pakistan.
The United Nations has played an advisory role in maintaining peace and order in the Kashmir region soon after the independence and partition of British India into the dominions of Pakistan and India in 1947, when a dispute erupted between the two new States on the question of accession over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. India took this matter to the UN Security Council, which passed resolution 39 (1948) and established the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the issues and mediate between the two new countries. Following the cease-fire of hostilities, it also established the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to monitor the cease-fire line.
New Zealand is a founding member of the United Nations, having taken part in the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco.
Ruchira Kamboj is a retired Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1987 batch, who last served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2022 to May 2024 until her retirement. She has previously served as High Commissioner of India to South Africa, first female Indian Ambassador to Bhutan and Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO, Paris.
India was among the charter members of the United Nations that signed the Declaration by United Nations at Washington, D.C., on 1 January 1942 and also participated in the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945. As a founding member of the United Nations, India strongly supports the purposes and principles of the UN and has made significant contributions in implementing the goals of the Charter, and the evolution of the UN's specialised programmes and agencies. In 1947, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in New Delhi became the first United Nations office in independent India.
Pakistan officially joined the United Nations (UN) on 30 September 1947 just over a month after it came into existence. Today, it is a charter member and participates in all of the UN's specialised agencies and organisations. Pakistan has been elected seven times into the UN Security Council, with the most recent term in 2013. It is also one of the countries which has had a diplomat, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, serve a term as the President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Hardeep Singh Puri is an Indian politician and former diplomat who is serving as 33rd Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas since 2021.
The foreign policy of the Modi government, also referred to as the Modi doctrine is associated with the policy initiatives made towards other states by the current government of India after Narendra Modi assumed the office of prime minister on May 26, 2014.
Syed Akbaruddin is a retired Indian diplomat from 1985 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and served as India's permanent representative at the United Nations at New York from January 2016 to April 2020. He had previously served as official spokesperson of India's Ministry of External Affairs from January 2012 to April 2015 and was Indian representative at IAEA from 2006 to 2011. He is currently serving as the dean of Kautilya School of Public Policy.
On January 2 2016, 4 militants belonging to Islamic terrorist United Jihad Council attacked the Indian Air Force's Pathankot Airbase, part of its Western Air Command.
Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav is an Indian national who has been incarcerated in Pakistan since 2016. The Pakistani government alleges that he is a spy for the Research and Analysis Wing, India's intelligence agency, and was arrested in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. The Indian foreign ministry says that he was kidnapped from Iran and illegally rendered to Pakistan.
The 2016 Uri attack was carried out on 18 September 2016 by four Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists from Pakistan against an Indian Army brigade headquarters near the town of Uri in the Indian Jammu and Kashmir. 19 Indian soldiers were killed in the attack, and 19–30 others were injured. It was reported by the BBC as having been "the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in two decades".
The General debate of the seventy-second session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) commenced on 19 September 2017 and ended on 25 September 2017. Leaders from a number of member states addressed the UNGA.
T. S. Tirumurti is a retired Indian civil servant (Ambassador) of the Indian Foreign Service cadre. His diplomatic career spanned 37 years (1985-2022). He served as the Secretary to Government of India and later as Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York when India became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 8th time. He was also the President of the UN Security Council for August 2021.
The Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations is the formal title of the Indian delegation to the United Nations (UN). India was among the founding members of the United Nations and signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942. India also participated in the United Nations Conference on International Organization and Diwan Bahadur Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar signed the United Nations Charter on India's behalf.
Samar Sen was an Indian diplomat who served as the 1st permanent representative of India to the United Nations, Geneva, 8th in New York and the 2nd high commissioner of India to Bangladesh from June 1974 to November 1976.
