Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday called upon top world leaders to transform the global trust deficit arising from Covid-19 and the Ukraine conflict into global trust and confidence, saying this was a time for the entire global community to walk together.

”After Covid-19, a huge crisis of lack of trust has come to the world. The (Ukraine) war has deepened this trust deficit. When we can defeat Covid, we can also overcome this crisis of mutual trust,” he said during the opening of the two-day G20 Summit in New Delhi.

The summit is being attended by heads of 41 countries and multilateral agencies. While Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have given it a miss, the summit is being attended by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other top leaders.

Emphasising that it was time for the G20 to move together, Modi said the mantra of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas” could become a guiding light for the global community.

Observing that the 21st century was a time that has the potential to give a new direction to the entire world, the PM said: ”It’s a time when years old challenges demand new solutions from us. Therefore, we must move forward by fulfilling all our responsibilities with a human centric approach.”

Mr Modi particularly spoke about the challenges like the turmoil in the global economy; divide between North and South; distance between East and West; management of food, fuel and fertilizer; terrorism and cyber sSecurity; health, energy and water Security and said: ”we have to move towards concrete solutions to these challenges for the present as well as future generations.”

The PM said India’s G20 presidency has become a symbol of inclusion, of “sabka saath” within and outside the country. In India, it became the People’s G-20. Crores of Indians joined it. In more than 60 cities of the country, over 200 meetings were held, he told the summit leaders.

Mr Modi told them that just a few kilometers away from the place where they have gathered, stood a pillar that was nearly two and a half thousand years old. Inscribed on this pillar in the Prakrit language were the words which in English meant: ”The welfare and happiness of humanity should always be ensured.”

Two and a half thousand years ago, the land of India, he said, gave this message to the entire world and the G20 Summit must remember this message.