GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 18th Oct: Former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has hailed India’s “energy and ambition” and described the India-UK partnership as “hugely promising for the future” after attending the NDTV World Summit 2025 in New Delhi.
In a social media post following the event, Sunak wrote, “It was a pleasure to join the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi and reconnect with my good friend @narendramodi. We spoke about the challenges and opportunities shaping the decade ahead, from AI and infrastructure to global growth and economic resilience. India’s energy and ambition are unmistakable. As new ideas and industries emerge, there’s huge potential for deeper partnerships between countries like the UK and India in business, technology and education.”
The post came after his appearance at the two-day summit, where Sunak discussed globalisation, the India-UK trade agreement, and the importance of cooperation in a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty.
Speaking at a session moderated by NDTV CEO and Editor-in-Chief Rahul Kanwal, Senior Managing Editor Vishnu Som, and Managing Editor Padmaja Joshi, Sunak said the global order that emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall “no longer exists.”
“The old global order, or globalisation, that I grew up with… is gone, and I don’t think it is coming back,” he remarked.
He predicted that the coming decade would be shaped by “multipolarity and domestic capabilities,” citing India as a leading example.
“There will be more multipolarity in the world – and India is an example of that – and countries everywhere are focused much more on domestic capabilities,” Sunak said.
Reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, he described it as a geopolitical turning point:
“Covid was not just a health crisis; it was a geopolitical event. Every country suddenly realised the fragility of their supply chains.”
On the subject of global trade, Sunak highlighted how China’s economic approach had forced democracies to rethink trade norms.
“It is clear China does not play by the same rules that many of the rest of us were playing by. They don’t view trade purely as an economic function. That’s why the UK and several others banned Huawei equipment and passed new national security Acts,” he said.
Rishi Sunak, who served as the UK’s first prime minister of Indian origin from October 2022 to July 2024, was born in Southampton in 1980 to a family of Indian heritage. His grandparents migrated from British India to East Africa and later settled in the United Kingdom. He is married to Akshata Murty, daughter of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and philanthropist-turned-MP Sudha Murty.
