PM Modi to attend Brics meet November 13

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Brasilia from November 13-14 to attend the 11th Brics Summit. The theme of the Brics Summit this year is “Economic Growth for an Innovative Future.”

This will be the sixth time that Mr Modi will be participating at the Brics Summit. His first Brics Summit was at Fortaleza in Brazil in 2014. The Brics comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Apart from participating in the Brics Summit, PM will have a bilateral meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro.

Prime Minister will be accompanied by an official delegation and a large business delegation from India is also expected to be present during the visit, especially to attend the Brics Business Forum where the business community of all five countries are represented, secretary (economic relations) in the ministry of external affairs T.S. Tirumurti said on Thursday while announcing the visit.

Mr Tirumurti said that there have been some significant developments in Brics in 2019, particularly in the area of counter terrorism.

“In the area of counter-terrorism, over the last years, India has taken the lead to galvanise Brics. We have also worked closely within Brics to not only take a strong stand against terrorism but also work to bring about focussed consultations on specific aspects related to terrorism. This year, the joint working group on counter-terrorism has decided to constitute five sub-working groups on counter-terrorism in the following areas: terrorist financing, use of internet for terrorist purposes, countering radicalisation, issue of foreign terrorists fighters and capacity building. It is expected that India will be chairing the sub group on use of internet for terrorist purposes. In this context, during the meeting of the National Security Advisors of Brics last month, NSA put forward a proposal to host a Brics Workshop on Digital Forensics,” he said.

On the deliverables, he added that a MoU between trade and investment promotion agencies of BRICS will be signed. The BRICS leaders will also agree to establish the Women Business Alliance. The i-BRICS – Innovation BRICS Network, will be launched which will include networking of research institutes like science parks, incubators, accelerators etc. The leaders will also be looking at launching BRICS institutes of Future Networks, the concept of which has been agreed to by the Telecom Ministers in August this year and greater focus will be given in the area of tuberculosis research.