Time for India to sit at Security Council high table: Indian envoy to UN

United Nations: India’s crucial win in an election to the UN audit body is ample demonstration that it is time for the country to sit at the UN Security Council high table and the global community can no longer behave like “ostriches in sand”, India’s envoy to the UN has said. India yesterday won an election to the UN Board of Auditors with its nominee Comptroller and Auditor General Shashikant Sharma garnering the maximum number of votes. [caption id=“attachment_1207985” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  United Nations logo. reuters image[/caption] Sharma obtained 124 votes out of 186 ballots cast in the election held in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee on administrative and Budgetary questions. The win is a “recognition of India’s institutional depth. We look forward to a very productive tenure on the board,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Asoke Mukerji told PTI. Mukerji said apart from experience in traditional audit, India will bring to the table expertise in newer areas like environmental audit, business systems  and IT audit. Impact of India’s expertise in these areas will now be felt on the global scene, he added. Mukerji said India’s winning streak in crucial UN elections demonstrates that India should now actually be sitting at the UN Security Council high table. “It is a message that others who have a reason to doubt to see and understand that they cannot keep an idea, whose time has come, away from them forever. They cannot be ostriches in the sand,” he said. Separately, for the membership of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), Devesh Uttam, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations was elected by acclamation. PTI