BRICS – 2016 India

BRICS is a group of five major emerging economies, comprising 43% of the world population, having 37% of the world GDP and 17% share in the world trade. South Africa was the last country which have joined the group in 2010 and completed the group as BRICS.

History of BRICS.

Earlier four nations joined hand to form a group in order to give a recognition to the world rising economic powers.The acronym BRIC (Brazil,Russia,India and China) was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, “The World Needs Better Economic BRICs” on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be amongst the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so. BRIC started after the meeting of the Leaders of Russia, India and China in St. Petersburg on the margins of G8 Outreach Summit in 2006. The 1st BRIC Summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on 16 June 2009.After inclusion of South Africa , it attended the 3rd BRICS Summit in Sanya, China on 14 April 2011.

BRICS Initiative

The BRICS Forum, an independent international organisation encouraging commercial, political and cultural cooperation between the BRICS nations. BRICS works on the two important pillars – issues of mutual interest through meetings of Leaders as well as of Ministers of Finance, Trade, Health, S&T, Education, Agriculture, Communication, Labour, etc. and practical cooperation in a number of areas through meetings of Working Groups/Senior Officials.

BRICS Summit -2016

8th BRICS summit concluded in India on 16th oct 2016 with the adoption of the Goa Declaration which pledged opposition to the terrorism.

The theme of India’s BRICS Chairmanship was Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions. 

During Indias BRICS Chairmanship, BRICS adopted the five-pronged approach:

(i) Institution building to further deepen, sustain and institutionalise BRICS cooperation 
(ii) Implementation of the decisions from previous Summits 
(iii) Integrating the existing cooperation mechanisms 
(iv) Innovation,i.e.,new cooperation mechanisms and
(v)Continuity,i.e.,continuation of mutually agreed existing BRICS cooperation mechanisms.

In a strongly worded statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “the most serious direct threat to our economic prosperity is terrorism. Tragically, its mother-ship is a country in India’s neighbourhood.”

According to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “the most serious direct threat to the economic prosperity is terrorism “.The declaration called for resolution of the civil war in Syria, in accordance with the “legitimate aspirations of the people of Syria” and sought action against U.N.-designated terrorist groups like IS and Jabhat al-Nusra.

The Goa Declaration also called for all nations to counter radicalism, and block sources of financing international terrorism, “including through organised crime by means of money-laundering, drug trafficking, criminal activities, dismantling terrorist bases and countering misuse of the Internet including social media by terror entities through misuse of the latest Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)”

BRICS has emerged one of the successful organisation which have attracted other nations also to join hand and work on the foot mark for the development of their respective economy. Presence of China and India has made this group powerful in terms of economy and military powers. Recently on 26 september 2016, The Department of Science and Technology under the BRICS – grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – framework organized the first ‘Young Scientists Conference’ in Bengaluru. The conference will see 50 young scientists meet over the next four days.  The BRICS Young Scientist Forum  (BRICS – YSF) was started last year. On the Ocassaion of 8th BRICS summit at Goa , U-17 Football Tournament, Youth Summit, Young Diplomats’ Forum, Film Festival etc were organised to promote the culture , Sport and communication and enhanced people-to-people (P2P) contacts of BRICS member states, especially youth.

From India’s prospective BRICS is an important platform in term of development of its markets.Co-operation on the economic front is one of the focus areas of India’s policy towards BRICS. India can also penetrate into African Markets with the help of BRICS organisation.India need to decide how she can utilize the BRICS platform at an international arena.