Q.
Have you thought of the international organisations as a, whole and the constant talk about re-structuring them in some form or the other, so that they can answer the challenges of today better than they have been doing so far?
A.
I think it has been raised many times. As Finance Minister, I attended the conference of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where we had asked for a re-organisation of international bodies, so that they should be more responsive to the problems of the developing world. Even the question of making alterations in the structure of the United Nations was also raised many times. In one of my speeches to U.N. General Assembly in October, 1975, I recall having emphasised that to bridge widening disparities we should have to enable U.N. agencies to function as really effective instruments in the realisation of our dream of one world.
Q.
In these international meetings, it is generally assumed that there are postures and responses which countries adopt behind the scenes. Do you recall any of these postures and responses in the formative stages in behind-the-scene meetings?
A.
Will you clarify this question? I could not follow it.
Q.
Before the political, economic or sociological resolutions are put forward in international conferences is there a lot of activity that goes on behind the scenes?
A.
No resolution as such comes before any conference. There is always a preparatory working group which sits and which does the real work of the conference. In these working group meetings which last for hours on end, they take behind-the-scene decisions and positions. The whole operation of their working group is a behind-the-scene operation. It is only after they come to some sort of an agreed draft that it comes before the conference. Naturally, there we come across different positions by different countries.
Joint Committees
Q.
What new forms of co-operation were developing with the Western democracies or other countries of the world during your tenure as Foreign Minister of India?
A.
I think a specific form of co-operation that we have developed in recent years is that of having joint commissions with different countries. We have such joint commissions with Socialist countries, other developing countries, and with the United States, France and Germany. This is one specific form that I can very easily remember. The special form of co-operation, the aid consortium, which meets practically every year in Paris, is an old forum which is very helpful in getting an appropriation of aid from the World Bank and IMF.