Climate crisis to AI: Challenges facing the future of humanity

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the United Nations. While there are numerous challenges that the world is facing, including serious questions relating to the credibility and legitimacy of the UN as a multilateral institution, it will be useful to recall the words of Dag Hammarskjéld, former UN Secretary General, who poignantly observed about the UN in 1954, “...it was not meant to take mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell...”.

- C Raj Kumar

In a similar vein, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the UN in 2025, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, “Eight decades later, one can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war.” It is indeed an opportune time to discuss the future of humanity and how we can transform tomorrow. I believe there are five critical issues that need global attention for transforming tomorrow.

One, strengthening the rule of law, democracy and justice institutions. The fragility of the rule of law and the eroding trust in democracy and justice institutions worldwide has been a major challenge that requires attention. We need to work towards strengthening the rule-of-law mechanisms so that societies are able to build trust in individuals and institutions to sustain democracy in the age of misinformation, polarisation, and scepticism. Worldwide, important measures of media freedom, civil liberties, and democratic quality have either stagnated or declined during the last two decades, as per various global indices. India's constitutional democracy and independent judiciary is a living experiment for democratic governance in managing scale, diversity, expectations, and disagreement. The world does look up to India while recognising that democracy and development could go hand in hand.