Indian tricolour to be installed at UN Security Council stakeout as country begins 2-yr tenure

United Nations, Jan 03: India's flag will be installed at the United Nations Security Council stakeout on Monday as the country begins its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the powerful UN body.

Flags of the five new incoming non-permanent members will be installed at the stakeout during a special ceremony on January 4, the first official working day of 2021.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador T S Tirumurti will install the tricolour and is expected to make brief remarks at the ceremony.

Along with India, the incoming UNSC members are Norway, Kenya, Ireland and Mexico. They will join non-permanent members Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam and the five permanent members China, France, Russia, the UK and the US.

India will be the UNSC President in August 2021 and will preside over the Council again for a month in 2022. The presidency of the Council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the member states names.

The tradition of the flag installation ceremony was introduced by Kazakhstan in 2018.

"Like the changing of the guards, it is the changing of flags from outgoing to the new elected members. This solemn ceremony serves the purpose of affirming and respecting the new members with the recognition they deserve," Kazakhstan's former Permanent Representative to the UN Kairat Umarov had said during the 2019 ceremony.

The ceremony was unanimously confirmed by all 15 UNSC members to become an annual tradition of the Security Council, Umarov had said.