Raisina Dialogue begins today, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni is to be chief guest at inaugural session

The Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-strategy, will hold its eighth edition on Thursday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will open the annual multilateral conference in New Delhi. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be the chief guest and keynote speaker at the opening session of the eighth Raisina Dialogue (MEA). The event is being organized by the Ministry of External Affairs in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation (URF) from March 2-4.

The conference, titled “Provocation, Uncertainty, Turbulence: Lighthouse in the Tempest?” will feature representatives from over 100 countries. The conference will begin on Thursday with an opening session from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. (IST). This will be followed by an inaugural dinner from 7:45 to 9:45 p.m., with remarks from Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra.

There will be keynote addresses by Minister of Health and Family Welfare-Mansukh Mandaviya, Senior Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan-Sachiko Imoto, Member of Parliament, Portuguese National Parliament, Portugal-Ricardo Baptista Leite.

A session on ‘Conversations Over Kahwa’ will be held on Thursday from 10:20 to 11:10 p.m., presided over by Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, India- Sanjeev Sanyal, Political Director, Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, Hungary-Balazs Orban, Founder, Her Afghanistan, USA- Mariam Wardak, among others.

The second day of the Raisina Dialogue will begin at 9 a.m. with a ministerial remarks session by the Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan. This will be followed by a panel discussion from 9:10-9:50 a.m., the specifics of which will be announced later.

Another panel discussion will take place from 9:50 to 10:40 a.m., presided over by Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, and Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada.

Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sameh Hassan Shoukry Selim will preside over a panel discussion from 11:10-11:50 pm. At 12 p.m. on Friday, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, will speak with Sunjoy Joshi, Chairman of the Observer Research Foundation.

From 4:25 – 5:15 pm on Friday, there will be a panel discussion on the topic ‘Bytes of Promise: How Can Technology Lift Communities?’, which will be presided over by Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs M. U. M. Ali Sabry. Saturday’s Raisina dialogue will begin with Conversations over Breakfast.

Meenakshi Lekhi, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, will make a ministerial statement at 9:15 a.m. On Saturday, from 5:10 to 6 p.m., Croatia’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Gordan Grlic Radman, will preside over a panel discussion.

Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra will preside over a riveting panel discussion from 7:10 to 8 p.m. Following this, there will be closing dinner discussions. Over 2,500 people would attend the dialogue in person, and the proceedings would be broadcast to millions more via various digital platforms.

The Raisina Dialogue has steadily grown in stature and profile over the last eight years, establishing itself as one of the leading global conferences on international affairs.

The most recent Raisina Dialogue was held in Sydney, where External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Jaishankar presented her with a cricket bat signed by Indian captain Rohit Sharma, while his Australian counterpart presented him with an Australian cricket jersey with the word ‘Jaishankar’ written on it.