UK invites India to in-person G7 meet of foreign ministers in May

The United Kingdom has invited India for an in-person G7 foreign ministers meeting that will take place in London from May 3 to 5. The UK, as the chair of the grouping for this year, has invited India, along with Australia, South Korea, South Africa, and the Chair and Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, "The meeting of G7 Foreign and Development Ministers next month is an opportunity to show how the world's biggest democracies work together to ensure equitable access to vaccines, build back better from the pandemic, support girls in the poorest countries get a good quality education and agree on ambitious action to tackle climate change."

A key focus of the meet will be on the COVID crisis, even as the pandemic continues to ravage large parts of the world. Climate Change will be the other big focus area, given the UK also hosts the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) meet later this year.

G7 is a grouping of seven industrialized countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, US & UK - plus the EU. This will be the first physical G7 meet to take place in over two years, the last being in Dinard and Saint-Malo, France in April 2019.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to the 47th G7 summit that will take place in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, the UK from 11 to 13 June.

India has been regularly invited for the G7 summit since 2019--first by France, then in 2020 by the US, and now by the UK this year. The physical G7 meet last year, under the then US President Donald Trump never happened, for reasons not known but perhaps due to the COVID pandemic.

The then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was first invited for the G8 grouping in 2005, back then by the UK in Gleneagles. Group became G7 with "disinvite" to Russia in 2014 over Crimea crisis.