India can serve its national interests by helping other countries and contributing to global good, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
“To my mind, doing good and serving your national interest are not alternatives. The minister also spoke about solar energy and the work of the International Solar Alliance. The minister asserted that India could make a difference by bringing countries together to work on common problems.
Because of Vedanta, yoga and other spiritual traditions, the monk said India enjoys goodwill in the United States and many Western countries. We serve our national interest by contributing to global good,” Jaishankar said at the NDTV World Summit 2026 while responding to Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Ramakrishna Mission, based in Manhattan.
He also mentioned the International Day of Yoga and said it helped improve India’s image around the world. “Now, in our own country, what it did was it tremendously raised awareness of millets, which is more nutritious, which is more climate-friendly, which, by the way, was our traditional food, which we, somewhere, many people forgot about,” the minister said. He said the initiative has helped promote solar energy and improve awareness of the technology and technical support available to countries. “If there is a single thing, I will tell you, not just in the last decade, really in my lifetime in diplomacy, that we have done, which large countries in the world remember, it’s what we did during vaccines,” he said. “If the world is not going in a good direction, and we are seen as doing so, I think it’s something good for the world, good for India,” he said.
