Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced that the G20 group had reached a consensus on the Leaders' Declaration. "It is good news, with everyone's cooperation, consensus has been reached on the New Delhi G20 leadership declaration," Prime Minister Modi announced on the opening day of the G20 summit to applause from other leaders and delegates.
The unanimous approval of the G20 leadership statement from New Delhi marks a diplomatic victory for India, which has struggled to avoid a split in the G20 group over the inclusion of references to Ukraine in the 38-page, roughly 75-paragraph joint declaration.
"I recommend that this statement be accepted," said the prime minister. The language used in the relevant passages about Ukraine was not explained, so the rigid attitude of both protagonists changed last year. "India expects all members of the G20 to come to a consensus and we hope for a consensus in the communiqué," Foreign Minister Vinay Mohan Kwatra said on Friday. "A declaration by our leaders from New Delhi is almost ready and only after the leaders accept it, we can talk about the real achievements of this declaration," said India's G20 chief Amitabh Kant.

Earlier in the day, the prime minister opened his speech by condoling the victims of the earthquake in Morocco. The focus of the prime minister's speech was the need for the G20 to find solutions to age-old challenges facing humanity. "And that's why we have to move forward with a people-centered approach and at the same time fulfill all our responsibilities. After Covid, there is a serious crisis of lack of trust in the world. The war exacerbated this lack of faith. If we can overcome Covid, we can also overcome the crisis of mutual trust.
"India's chairmanship of the G-20 became a symbol of inclusion, a 'Sabka Saath' within and outside the country. In India, it became the people's G-20. Millions of Indians joined it." More than 200 meetings were held in more than 60 cities of the country, the Prime Minister noted.

"It is in this spirit that India proposed to the G20 to become a permanent member of the African Union," he noted.
The central themes of the joint declaration to be decided at the summit are the increase in loans to develop the reform of the international debt architecture, cryptocurrency regulations, and the effects of geopolitics on food and energy security.