130,000 security personnel and cutouts of langurs to protect G20 summit

WEB DESK, Reuters: Leaders of the world’s richest and most powerful countries will attend the two-day G20 Summit in New Delhi starting September 9, in a first for India. While the city has been adorned with ornamental flowers and fountains at traffic roundabouts, there is an extraordinary measure that has been taken to keep monkeys away.

The Delhi administration has posted cutouts of very angry langurs across the city in a bid to scare away their cousins from areas that are considered sensitive security-wise. This is in addition to the 130,000 police and para-military personnel deployment as well as the use of anti-drone systems to keep the sky clean of unauthorised drones.

WHAT IS THE G20?

The world’s 20 major countries formed an economic grouping after the Asian financial crisis in 1999 with the understanding that such crises could no longer be contained within a nation’s borders and required better international economic cooperation.

The bloc currently accounts for 80% of global gross domestic production (GDP) and 75% of international trade.

Its members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

Although only treasury chiefs met in the initial years, heads of all member nations decided to meet once a year for a leaders’ summit post the 2008 financial crisis.