A post claiming that India has been elected as the president of the UN for 4 years is being shared on social media. The post is accompanied by a video in which a narrator elaborates that India was elected as the president of the UN Statistical Commission for four years. Let’s verify this claim through this article.
Claim: India was elected as the president of the UN for four years.
Fact: India was recently elected as a member of the UN Statistical Commission for a term of four years. The UN Statistical Commission is headed by a Chairperson, and currently, Gabriella Vukovich of Hungary heads it. Hence the claim made in the post is Misleading.
To check the veracity of the claim, we performed an internet search using relevant keywords. This search led to a few news reports (here, here and here) from the first week of April 2023 which were about the election of India as a member of the United Nations Statistical Commission.
According to Indian Express, ‘India has been elected to the UN Statistical Commission for a four-year term.’ In the election held for the membership, India won ’46 out of 53 votes, ahead of South Korea (23), China (19), and the UAE (15)’, reported the Indian Express. The External Affairs Minister of India, Dr. S Jaishankar, tweeted about this win and said that the four-year term will begin on 1 January 2024.
According to the UN, The United Nations Statistical Commission is the highest body of the global statistical system, which brings together the Chief Statisticians from member states worldwide. It is the highest decision-making body for international statistical activities.
The head of the UN Statistical Commission is called a Chairperson, not a President. Gabriella Vukovich of Hungary is the current Chairperson of the Statistical Commission.
To sum up, India was elected as a member of the United Nations Statistical Commission for four years, not as its president.
