BRICS Press Clubs Networks Launched
Russia Moots Free Visa Regime to Journalists
By TN Ashok
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Russian Embassy Senior Counsel Karmalito today suggested a liberal visa regime for journalists to visit each others countries in the BRICS grouping and write about developmental works there instead of depending on western media which while being informative seemed to have a developed country bias.
The ambassador suggested this even as a BRICS Press Clubs Networks was launched at the National Press Club of India in the capital last evening where the ambassadors of BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were present. The Chinese ambassador could not attend and was represented by a representative Wang Bin Bin.
The network was inaugurated by the Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (Economic Relations), Amar Singh who said BRICS should be perceived not as a bloc but as a collective body of five emerging nations changing the global order in terms of economic, social and political order. He was addressing a seminar on “BRICS: Consolidating a decade of gains and the way ahead and inauguration of BRICS Press CLub Network”.
Sinha pointed out that at the India hosted the 8thBRICS summit at Goa many positives had emerged. BRICS had brought paradigm shift in global thinking and the Goa summit had thrown up three distinct features 1) -BRICS India global summit, 2) BRICS India press meet and the main 3) BRICS summit.
‘Since the 1st BRICS summit in 2009 following the global financial crisis of 2007-08 it has assumed global significance its is increasingly being felt that it can contribute to global challenges. Two major achievements of the Goa BRICS summit highlighted by Sinha was , the functioning of the new Development Bank– BRICS Bank wich has disbursed funds consistent with the UN charter of sustainable development and they went to projects on renewable energy. The summit discussed ways to augment the trade between the member nations from current 300 million dollars. Prime Minister NarendraModi had expressed the desire to increase the trade level to about 500 billion USD.
Initialling of the Custom cooperation MoU was the 2nd major feature of the BRICS meeting to promote trade and commerce and exchange of capital and information among the participating countries in a more efficient manner.’
BRICS, the representatives of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, felt could impact the happenings globally as they were an integral part of the G20 grouping. They can deal with a ”global taxation body”’, corruption issues internally and internationally besides issues such as flight of capital from the south to north.
The Brazilian Ambassador Tovar De Nunnes ,The South African High Commissioner France Morule and the Russian Senior Counsellor Karmalito were unanimous in agreeing BRICS is not a “West vs the Rest” model as suggested by the MEA Secretary Amar Sinh who said it was a grouping about working together. “People around the world are taking note of BRICS… its ‘West with the rest’,” Sinha said.
BRICS is the acronym for the grouping of five major emerging national economies in the developing world constituted by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.The 9th BRICS summit will be held in China next year.
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