New York: India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, on Friday (September 20) said that countering terrorism and extremist narratives using internet and cyberspace would be Prime Minister Narendra Modi's key area of focus at a counter-terrorism meeting convened by the United Nations.
"Today, terrorists operate well beyond boundaries. They are using social media platforms, and the internet in general, in adverse ways. So the focus of the event the Prime Minister will participate in at the UN is on countering terrorist narratives and violent extremists through internet and cyberspace," Akbaruddin told media.
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The envoy said that addressing the challenges of terrorism would always be a theme in India's foreign policy orientation, because "it affects our people in ways which very few external influences do".
With this regard, the Prime Minister has made a call for an international conference to counter-terrorism.
The envoy noted the two main developments about the UN's actions concerning counter-terrorism this year, namely, the listing of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, and UNSC's condemnation of the terrorist attack against Indian soldiers in Pulwama.
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The UN meeting on countering terrorism has come ahead of the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) final decision next month on whether to blacklist Pakistan or to keep it in its grey list or not. The inter-governmental organisation had given the country four months to improve its counter-terror financing operations.
On Friday, PM Modi departed for a six-day visit to the United States.
