Context

The United Kingdom has invited India to attend G7 Summit to be held in Cornwall in June 2021.

About

What is the G7?

• The G7 (or Group of Seven) is an organisation made up of the world's seven largest so-called advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• It was for a while, known as the G8 as it also included Russia, but after their 2014 annexation of Crimea, they were booted out of the summit, reducing it to the G7.
• The group regards itself as "a community of values", with freedom and human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and prosperity and sustainable development as its key principles.

Background The concept of a yearly forum for the world’s major industrialised countries emerged before 1973. However, its progress accelerated after the 1973 oil crisis, where the US convened an informal gathering of finance ministers from West Germany, France and the United Kingdom ahead of a proper gathering. G5: It later expanded to involve Japan to become the G5. G6: Two years later in 1975, it included Italy, becoming the G6 G7: Canada joined in 1976 to create the G7. G8: In 1998, years after the end of the Cold War, Russia was invited for the first time, marking a major turning point in world relations. This ended in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea with the group returning to its previous G7 lineup.

The upcoming summit

• Britain holds the G-7's rotating presidency this year. It last hosted the group's annual meeting in 2013 at the Lough Erne Resort in Northern Ireland.
• The proposed summit will be the first in-person G-7 summit in almost two years, as it will be held in the English region of Cornwall from June 11 to 13.
• Modi participated in the Biarritz G7 summit in 2019 when French President Emmanuel Macron had invited India.
• Besides India, Australia and South Korea have also been invited.

Increasing cooperation between UK and India

• Cooperation between the U.K. and India is significant this year as India is a non-permanent member at the UN Security Council, where the United Kingdom will take over the presidency in February.
• UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is likely to visit India ahead of the G7 Summit.

Focus areas

• The upcoming G-7 summit will focus on promote a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The other priority is the climate, as the UK will organize itself in Glasgow, November, the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, in the acronym).