Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the G7 meeting. Calling PM Modi's speech as "inspiring as well as ironic", Chidambaram said the Modi government should practice in India what it preaches to the world.
Taking to Twitter, Chidambaram said: "PM Modi’s speech at the G7 outreach meeting is inspiring as well as ironic The Modi government should practice in India what it preaches to the world. It is sad that PM Modi was the only guest not physically present at the outreach meeting. Ask yourself why?"
"It is sad that PM Modi was the only guest not physically present at the Outreach meeting. Ask yourself why? Because India is an outlier as far as the fight against COVID-19 is concerned. We are the most infected and least vaccinated country (as a proportion of the population)," he added.
In his second virtual address at the G7 summit on Sunday, PM Modi said India is a natural ally for the G7 and its partners in defending democracy, freedom of thought and liberty from a host of threats stemming from authoritarianism, terrorism, violent extremism and economic coercion.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that PM Modi, as the lead speaker at the session titled 'open societies and economies', highlighted India's civilisational commitment to democracy, freedom of thought and liberty.
"As the world's largest democracy, India is a natural ally for the G7 and guest countries to defend these shared values from a host of threats stemming from authoritarianism, terrorism and violent extremism, disinformation and infodemics and economic coercion," he said.
The Prime Minister also highlighted the revolutionary impact of digital technologies on social inclusion and empowerment in India through applications such as Aadhaar, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity.
The Group of Seven (G7) comprises the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. As chair of G7, the UK invited India, Australia, South Korea and South Africa to the summit as Guest countries.
(With inputs from PTI)
