Was PM Modi Excluded From A Meeting Of World Leaders At The G20 Summit? No, Viral Claim Is False

An image of the US President Joe Biden sitting at a table alongwith world leaders at the recently held G20 summit has gone viral across social media with the claim that Prime Minister Modi was excluded from talks at the table.

The G20 Summit was held on November 15 and 16 in Bali, Indonesia. The focus of this year's talks was the condition of the global economy, agriculture, food security, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, green development, and women-led development. PM Modi had several back-to-back bilateral meetings at the summit and invited world leaders to the next G20 summit in Delhi in September 2023.

Claim:

A professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden, Ashok Swain, tweeted the viral image showing Joe Biden sitting alongwith world leaders such as French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The image is circulated with the claim, "Biden called an emergency meeting at #G20 - India's so-called Vishwaguru Modi is missing!"

As users pointed out that the meeting was between G7 and NATO leaders, which India is not a part of, Swain sent out another tweet saying, "Those who are saying it was a NATO-G7 meeting should ask why G7 was called to meet when the matter is military in nature? If to include Japan, why not India? Moreover, many members of NATO were not there; how was it a NATO meeting when NATO decisions need to be unanimous?"

The claim went viral across Twitter with the same image. The meeting's image is viral across Facebook with the same claim.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be false. India is not a member of either the G7 or the NATO alliance.

We conducted a reverse image search on the viral image and came across the same image in a report by Bloomberg. The report was published on November 16, 2022, and detailed how the world leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) dealt with a blast in Eastern Poland, which led to the death of two people.

As per the Bloomberg report, the world leaders reportedly discussed the possibility of the blast being connected to Russian forces firing rockets at Ukraine and a stray rocket striking the territory in Eastern Poland, which is close to the Ukrainian border. The caption of the Bloomberg report reads, "Biden and other Group of Seven leaders discuss the missile strike on Polish territory on Nov. 16."

We also came across an ANI report published on November 16, 2022, which showed a different visual of the same meeting. As per the report, the meeting was between leaders of NATO and G7, who offered their 'full support to Poland's investigation into the blast near the Ukrainian border.

The G7 are an informal forum of leading industrialised nations, which includes Canada, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, as per an Indian Express report.

G7 countries constitute 31% of global gross domestic product, 10% of the world's population, and 21% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Indian Express report. The report also states, "China and India, the two most populous countries with among the largest GDP figures in the world, are not part of the grouping."

Meanwhile, as per the G20 website, the members of the G20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

The NATO alliance consists of 30 independent member countries, such as Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Poland, Norway, and Luxembourg. The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the United States lead these 30 countries in the alliance.

We also came across this report by the White House on the meeting between the world leaders, titled, 'Joint Statement of NATO and G7 Leaders on the Margins of the G20 Summit in Bali'. The report notes that political leaders from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the European Commission, and the United States gathered on the sidelines of the G20 summit to discuss the blast in Poland.

Joe Biden and PM Modi were seen interacting with each other as seen in this tweet published by the news agency ANI. This indicates that there was a prior interaction between the world leaders before the meeting of G7 and NATO leaders was declared.

Conclusion:

We found that India is not a member of either the G7 or the NATO alliance, which explains the absence of Prime Minister Modi from the meeting of world leaders seen in the viral image. PM Modi has interacted with world leaders such as Biden, Sunak and Macron at the margins of the G20 summit. Thus, we can ascertain that there were no nefarious intentions behind excluding India and PM Modi from the meeting on the blast in Poland. The viral claim is false.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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