Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday flagged the dangers of protectionism and batted for a multilateral world order saying democracies can’t be taken for granted and nations will have to stand up for the rule of law.Delivering the inaugural Dr Manmohan Singh Memorial Lecture here, Merkel dwelt in detail on US tariff policies upending the world economic order, Russian aggression threatening the sovereignty of Ukraine and social media making it tough to sift lies from truths. “The world order has been shaken,” she said.Merkel, who was the German Chancellor from 2005 to 2021, recalled a decade of association with Manmohan Singh and said the late Prime Minister was a votary of multilateralism and believed in inclusive growth as the key ingredient for global peace and security.“In these times of protectionist trade, Manmohan Singh’s warnings can guide the world,” she said, describing the former PM as a special person who commanded a “natural authority that was not intimidating”.Merkel was speaking in the presence of a distinguished gathering comprising Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, late PM Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur, his daughters Upinder Singh and Daman Singh who conducted the evening, former Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra and former ministers P Chidambaram, Ashwani Kumar and Salman Khurshid, among others.Merkel, while championing multilateralism in her address, lauded India for registering an annual economic growth above 5 per cent for several years now.She termed the Indian economic potential as “inexhaustible” and credited Manmohan Singh’s 1991 liberalisation as a fundamental building block for “thirty years of uninterrupted economic growth in the country”.Merkel specifically flagged the Russian aggression of Ukraine saying, “The right of territorial integrity was treated with contempt.” She said multilateralism was under stress with the US “weakening international organisations and openly questioning the role of the UN and the UNSC as a platform for resolving conflicts”.“The order of cooperation we have known so far now stands replaced with ‘might means right’. Social media and AI have further made it possible to call lies truths and truths lies. This has consequences for democracies,” Merkel said speaking in German, with simultaneous translations available for guests.Recalling Manmohan Singh’s advocacy of multilateralism during his time as the PM, Merkel said, “In view of the enormous challenges of our times, Manmohan Singh’s work and beliefs can offer guidance.” Here she specifically recalled Singh’s remarks to the US Congress in 2005 where he had said that the real test of democracy is not in what is written in the Constitution but in how it functions on the ground.Flagging the stress on democracies worldwide, Merkel said nations mustn’t give way in the face of hatred and incitement. “Democratic orders cannot be taken as a given. We need to stand up for them actively and commit ourselves to the principles of multilateral cooperation. No one country can alone solve any problem,” she said, ruing the US pull-out of the Paris agreement on climate change action.Merkel batted strongly for AI regulation and said if it wasn’t done, “multilateralism will ossify.” The former German Chancellor also took note of global tech leader US resisting the regulation of social media and AI. “Just because something seems too complicated to do doesn’t mean it should not be done. Politicians can regulate social media like they regulated chemicals and atomic power. We have to protect citizens. We can’t just listen to the industry,” she said firmly.Later, in a conversation with former Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, Merkel further hammered the need to rein in social media saying AI is the first technology in history which the humankind is unable to regulate.Earlier in her remarks that followed an introduction to Dr Singh by Upinder Singh, Merkel said she had learnt a lot about other nations from her conversations with the late Indian PM.Merkel made a special mention of MNREGA and the Right to Education Act as two major legislations under Manmohan Singh as the PM. She said his best mark was as Finance Minister as he opened Indian markets for the world, unleashing economic potential that has sustained till today.