By Tuhin Sanzid

Like every year, the regular annual session of the United Nations general assembly (UNGA) is set to begin in New York on the third Tuesday in September 17th. Already Tijjani Muhammad-Bande of Nigeria has been elected president of the current session. 

Hundreds of presidents and Prime minister are going to participate in this 74th session. Among them Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina will also attend in the assembly. Also attend Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is not coming. And Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to come.

The first seven days of the session will be spent on the selection of 21 deputies and making various procedural decisions. The main highlight of the session will be the general debate starting on September 24. It will last two weeks. The day before the debate begins, that is, on September 23 a summit on the question of global climate will be held at the invitation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The same day a high-level meeting was convened on the invitation of the UN General Assembly on universal health care. Several high-level meetings will be held during the general debate, the UN Secretariat informed. 

Many call this annual debate of the UN General Assembly a 'shop of speech'. Regular gatherings of so many leaders from different countries do not occur anywhere else. As a result, the world is watching for whom to say in this two-week debate. Whatever the diplomatic significance of this debate, it has no real utility. The General Assembly does not take any decision on the basis of debate. At the end of the year, when the proposal is taken on one and a half hundred or more issues, no one is bothered about it because there is no obligation or process to implement it. That's why the naming of the 'shop of speech'.

Two weeks of general debate, most of the world leaders whose country and audience speak in mind. In many cases, when a less important leader gives a speech, the whole hall is virtually empty except for the representatives of his embassy and the invited guest in the visitors' gallery.

Like as last assembly, this time everyone will be watching over President Trump. Last year, he announced that, despite having been in chair (US president) for less than two years, the success he had already achieved was not achieved in American history. Trump's words made a laugh in the halls of the General Assembly. Everyone will be waiting for what he said this time.

The United Nations Secretariat has confirmed that many people, known as 'Strong Men', are coming to this year's general debate in addition to Trump. Among them are- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Andrzej Duda of Poland, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Russia's Putin said he was not coming. China's Xi Jinping  is unlikely to come either.