[CA] BRICS 2019

·       @ Brasilia, Brazil

·       From Nov 13 -1 4, 2019

·       Theme: "Economic Growth for an Innovative Future"

This will be the sixth time that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi will be participating at the BRICS summit. His first BRICS summit was at Fortaleza in Brazil in 2014.

BRICS brings together five major emerging economies comprising 42 percent of the world's population, having 23 percent of the global GDP and around 17 percent of the share and world trade.

 BRICS cooperation has two pillars including consultations on issues of mutual interest through meeting of leaders and ministers as well as cooperation through meeting of senior officials in a number of areas including trade, finance, health, education, science and technology, agriculture, communications IT etc.

[CA] BRICS themed subway train

BRICS-themed subway train debuted in China's Xiamen (place where the 9th Summit was held)

·        The Indian carriage depicts elephants and yoga

·        The Chinese carriage is red and displays icons such as the Great Wall and Tian'anmen Square

·        The Brazilian carriage is green and decorated with images of footballs and football stars.

·        The Russian carriage shows off the country's ballet and matryoshka dolls

·        The South African carriage displays pictures of diamonds.

·        The sixth carriage combines cultural elements from all five BRICS countries.

[CA] HDI: India & BRICS

[CA] BRICS women parliamentarians’ forum

BRICS women parliamentarians’ forum / Jaipur Declaration

BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) women parliamentarians’ forum on 21 August 2016 passed unanimously the Jaipur Declaration. The declaration was adopted by them on the concluding day of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians' Forum meet held in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The declaration has emphasized the need to inform, communicate and educate citizens about developmental schemes. This is second such meeting (first one was held at Moscow in 2015)

Highlights

• The Declaration mentions the need to address climate change and protection of ecological system and forest as well as food security, expeditious parliamentary approval of SDG related legislation and adequate budgetary resources.

• It calls upon international financial institutions to extend support to developing and least developed countries and help them gain easier access to new and affordable technologies as envisaged under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement

• It also emphasizes on plans for incorporating gender concerns and greater involvement of women parliamentarians in integrating citizens in the development process.

Besides, the need to inform and educate citizens about the developmental schemes and institutionalisation of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians' Forum were also taken up in the declaration which was unanimously adopted.

Heads and members of delegation from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were present in the two-day meeting which held from 20 August to 21 August 2016.

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[Current Affairs] Social Progress Index -2 014

Current Affairs

Social Progress Index

Social Progress Index

·        Measures the countries that provide the social and environmental needs of their citizens rather than the economic figures

·        Based on the writings of Amartya Sen, Douglass North and Jospeh Stilgitz

·        Economic development is necessary but not sufficient for social progress. A country’s overall level of development masks social and environmental strengths and challenges. At a disaggregated level, the social progress index shows areas of underperformance and success for countries at all income levels

·        Recall in India, Gujarat may lead in Economic growth but it is one of poor in Social Index rankings. Kerala and Tamil Nadu may not be top in economic growth but these two are socially improved states in India than any other (even Amartya Sen said that, the social growth in Kerala and Tamil Nadu is the most interesting story and it is comparable to European countries) [Recall the ‘bitter’ Lok Sabha election campaign b/w Jayalalithaa and Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu; Newspaper quoted the title as “Is it Amma Model or NaMo model? Which will win in TN?” – Answer is: 2/39 – For NaMo+ and 37/39 for Amma (without any alliance)]

·        SPI – not just economic growth makes that nation most developed or socially developed.

 ·        3 dimensions for this index

(i) Basic Human Needs

(ii) Foundations of Wellbeing

(iii) Opportunity

·        132 countries surveyed

·        The top 3 countries in the Social Progress Index are: New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland (in 2014 HDI rankings – the top three are: Norway, Australia and Switzerland)

·        Bottom three are (132 - Chad; 131 – Central African Republic and 130 - Burundi)

·        India’s rank is at 102 (and as usual like in other major index, in this also India ranks last among BRICS nations)

Top ten countries in SPI – 2014:

(i) New Zealand

(ii) Switzerland

(iii) Iceland

(iv) The Netherlands

(v) Norway

(vi) Sweden

(vii) Canada

(viii) Finland

(ix) Denmark

(x) Australia

-è No Asian countries in top 10

Germany @ 12; UK @ 13; USA @ 16 and France @ 20

BRICS countries in SPI – 2014:

Brazil – 46

South Africa – 69

Russia – 80

China – 90

India – 102

India and her neighbours in SPI – 2014:

Sri Lanka – 85

Bangladesh – 99

Nepal – 101

India – 102

Pakistan – 124

(Bhutan not counted for ranking)

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