Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday drew world attention towards terrorism in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel and said wherever it may strike, whatever be its reason or form, it is against humanity, and as such needs to be dealt with strongly by everyone.

He was inaugurating the 9th G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit (P20) at Yashobhoomi here. The summit is being hosted by Parliament of India under the framework of India’s G20 presidency with the theme of “Parliaments for One Earth, One Family, One Future.”

Despite worldwide realization of how serious the challenge of terrorism is, Modi said there was no international consensus on the definition of terrorism yet. Even today, the International Convention on Combating Terrorism is awaiting a general agreement, he said.

The prime minister said enemies of humanity are taking advantage of this attitude of the world. Parliaments and parliamentarians across the world will have to consider how to come together in a fight against terrorism, he said.

A divided world cannot face the challenges before it, Modi said. There is conflict and confrontation, and none can remain unaffected from whatever is happening. A world full of problems is not in anybody’s interest, he said. This is time for peace and brotherhood, and to work together and move ahead, he said.

It is time for development and welfare of all, the prime minister said. “We must end the crisis of trust in the world and work on a human-centric approach. We must view the world with the objective of ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future.’ The greater the participation in decisions concerning the world, the larger will be its impact,” he said.

It was with this concern that India had proposed the inclusion of the African Union in the G20 as a permanent member, and he was happy that it was accepted by G20 members. Modi said the attendance of the Pan-African Parliament at the P20 conference was a matter of satisfaction.

Modi told the G20 speakers that India has been through several attacks of terrorism. He said Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla would take them around India’s new Parliament building in the city. Close by is the old Parliament House where terrorists had struck 20 years back during a parliamentary session and wanted to kill the MPs by keeping them hostage.

India has faced cross-border terrorism for decades, he said, and terrorists have taken the lives of thousands of innocent people in the country.

Modi said there can be no better medium than public participation in dealing with world challenges. “I have always believed that governments are formed by majority, but the country is run by consensus. Our parliaments and this P20 forum can also strengthen this sentiment,” the prime minister said, and expressed confidence that efforts to improve this world through debate and deliberations will definitely be successful.

The prime minister said the P20 Summit is taking place on the land which is not only known as the mother of democracy but is also the largest democracy in the world.

He said 17 general elections and more than 300 state assembly elections have taken place in India since Independence. People’s participation is consistently increasing in this largest electoral exercise. He said the 2019 general election, in which his party was elected to power, was the biggest electoral exercise of human history with over 600 million voters participating in it.

At that time, he said, there were 910 million registered voters, more than the population of entire Europe. The 70 per cent turnout among such a large electorate showed the deep faith of Indians in their parliamentary practices. The 2019 election witnessed a record participation of women as well. More than 600 political parties participated in this election and 10 million government employees worked to conduct it, while one million polling stations were erected for voting.

The prime minister dwelt on modernization of the election process. The use of EVMs for the last 25 years has brought transparency and efficiency to the election process as election results come within hours of the start of counting. He said that one billion people will participate in the general election next year and invited the delegates to witness the elections.

Modi said the Indian Parliament has passed a law to reserve 33 per cent seats in the House and the state assemblies for women. Out of more than three million elected representatives in the local self-government institutions, almost 50 per cent are women. “India today is promoting women’s participation in every sector. The recent decision taken by our Parliament will further enrich our parliamentary tradition,” Modi added.

The prime minister also highlighted the unwavering faith of the citizens in the parliamentary traditions of India and credited its diversity and vibrancy for this. “We have people of every faith here. Hundreds of types of food, ways of living, languages, dialects,” Modi said.

He said that India has more than 900 TV channels in 28 languages to provide real-time information to people, more than 33,000 different newspapers are published in about 200 languages, and about three billion users on different social media platforms. This showed the flow of information and the level of freedom of speech in India.