This year’s BRICS summit might be one of the most awaited conference of 2016 with the eyes of all the world on the Modi-Putin pair and how it might affect the Indo-Chinese and Indo-Russian relations. The 8th summit of the leading developing nations will be held in Cavessolim, Goa from 15th to 16th October 2016 with a lot of interesting developments speculated to take place, the consequence of which may affect Eastern as well as Western countries.
BRICS, is nothing but an acronym of the five participating countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Formerly, with the exclusion of South Africa, the collaborating countries were called ‘BRIC’ which was started in 2011 garnered as much criticism as praise. The countries on one hand form about half the world’s population with more than 3.6 billion people living in the countries and have a combined nominal GDP of US$16.6 trillion. But South Africa and Brazil have seen a growth of hardly 1% over the last decade, Russia’s recent crashing of oil rates are no news and China’s economic downturn is supposed to drag down the world even more. India, although trying to get back its position in the world market, still has a long way to go. Nevertheless, the BRICS summit brings forward a topical issue across the globe. The declaration is well anticipated to exceed its predecessor, which had over 70 paragraphs.
No matter the issue of discussion, one of the biggest elephant in the room will definitely be the Indo-Pak relations. The issue was further underlined when Modi refrained from inviting Pakistan while inviting others neighbours under the umbrella of BIMSTEC that includes Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal – for an outreach with the BRICS leaders.
The tension seems to only be increasing with China not making any qualms with its friendship with Islamabad and also rebuffed India’s calls for the United Nations to designate Masood Azhar, leader of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed group, as a terrorist. On the other hand, Russia, though defending its position for India as strategic partner, has been looking over at Pakistan too. However, supposedly even China is not really on stable situation with Pakistan because of its in house sheltering of terrorist that threatens to disrupt its $46 billion trade corridor through Pakistan to Arabian Sea. Whatever be the outcome, all eyes and ears are on the BRICS meet to be held tomorrow and we can just wait and watch what ripples will be made thereafter.
Apart from the friction, there were some spectacular initiatives to be seen this year. The first BRICS film festival was held at New Delhi from 2 September to 6 September 2016. The five day film festival screened four films each from the participating nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The environment ministers of BRICS nations held a meeting on 16th September 2016 in Goa, they agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and announced the setting up of a joint working group institutionalizing their mutual cooperation on environment related issues. The agriculture ministers of BRICS nations held a meeting on 23rd September 2016 in New Delhi.
