What the IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said at the The Indian Fifth Annual Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, New Delhi

The Summit, held on 12 October, 2007, featured talks by several important political figures in India, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Sonia Gandhi and the IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, who talked on - Global security: The need for a new beginning.

Some of the challenges humanity is facing today, as listed by him are:

• Poverty and the persistent inequity in the global distribution of wealth. A study by the United Nations University found that, as of the year 2000, the richest one percent of the world's population owned 40 percent of the world's assets. By contrast, the poorest half of humanity owned barely one percent of global wealth.
• Religious intolerance and the lack of political freedom to systematic oppression and torture and human right abuses, lack of good governance
• Uneven approach to the sanctity of human life
• Global insecurities and threats of nuclear and radiological terrorism.

He said that India has never joined the NPT, and therefore has not made the same legal commitments, it shares responsibility in terms of the urgent need for leadership on nuclear disarmament. In fact, he quoted that next month, it would be 50 years since Prime Minister Nehru made an impassioned appeal, here in New Delhi, for a worldwide end to nuclear testing and the elimination of all nuclear weapons arsenals, in order to "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

He appreciated the sustained economic growth of recent years has given hope that the political freedoms enjoyed by the Indian people can be coupled with economic prosperity for all. He said democracy is an evolutionary process; however, it must begin from within, and it must be nurtured and supported, regardless of whether the particular leader is a political friend or foe, and regardless of the outcome of a given election. Investments should be in more advanced science and technology to meet development needs - seeking to do more than create more wealth for the wealthy

He appealed to the international community to deal with symptoms of insecurity at the national level, including nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. On the nuclear front he said, the security of existing stocks of nuclear and radiological material should be strengthened, and controls over sensitive nuclear operations that produce such material should be tightened.

Dr. ElBaradei emphasized the need to engage in the sustained diplomacy necessary to resolve longstanding conflicts and to alleviate problems of poverty and hunger to generate momentum for good governance. He called for investments on innovation to address problems of hunger and disease.