Hi everyone and welcome. I am joined here today by Alexander Merakurris. And from India, we have

the ambassador, Badra Kumar, who is, I would call a giant in India's diplomacy. He's got 30

years of diplomatic career. He's been an ambassador and held other positions across the world.

So it's a great privilege to have the both of you here today.

And discussing how the world is changing and also India's role in this.

As we see now, especially with this restructuring of relations between the United States and Russia,

I guess both the Americans and the Russians now are recognizing that the world is becoming more

multipolar, and in a multipolar world, India will, yeah, unavoidably be one center of power.

And we see, yeah, Modi get along with Trump.

Modi gets along with Putin.

So if Russia and the United States can change their relationship,

how will this change the world and, yeah, what will be India's position in this?

Maybe if we start with you ambassador baddur Kumar how do you see the the role of india in this new multipolar setting

thank you professor for giving me this privilege you see is a very prestigious platform, and I feel somewhat intimidated, you know, that in the presence of you both, because you are such giants, you know, every day you are, you know, coming out with very solid ideas, you know, which is highly stimulating for the intellectuals all over the world.

Let me try to contribute as best as I can.

Well, coming straight to the point that you made,

I would respond this way that when you come to India, India is a role in the emerging world order, the international system, and its capacity to influence world politics.

All that taken into account, I must say that it is not in a unilinear line.

You need to take an immediate short-term perspective, which I will begin with that.

And then there is a medium and long-term perspective where I would suggest noticely that much of what you said is holding good.

Because let me first separate that first, you know, in the sense that by virtue of its size, the landmass, its geographical location in Asia,

the population, and the dynamism that is apparent in the recent decades in its growth and development,

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