4th BRICS academic forum to meet in Delhi

New Delhi, Mar.3 (ANI): As the forerunner to the forthcoming Fourth BRICS Summit being hosted by India later this month, the BRICS Academic Forum is meeting in New Delhi from Monday.

Over 50 scholars from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will take part in the March 4 to 6 event being hosted by Observer Research Foundation.

From India, the meeting will see participation by experts from IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bengaluru, Delhi University, JNU, RIS, CDS, National Skilling Mission and Department of Economic Affairs.

Sudhir Vyas, Secretary (Economic Affairs) in the Ministry of External Affairs, will deliver the keynote address on March 5, while Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, Director, Observer Research Foundation, will host a dinner for the visiting delegates on March 4.

The theme for this year's meeting is 'BRICS Partnership for Stability, Security and Growth'.

The three-day meeting will discuss various issues, including BRICS Vision 2020, Institutionalising Coordination Frameworks for Crisis Response, Climate Change, Food Security and Water, Urbanization, Universal Access to Healthcare, Skilling and Direct Investments in Education Sector, Skilling and Direct Investments in Education Sector, BRICS Development Bank and Impact Investment Fund and Technology Sharing, Innovation and Cooperation across Industries.

The challenge for BRICS countries has always been the articulation of a common vision, with the member nations being at different stages of political and socio-economic development. While some have evolved economically and militarily they are yet to succeed in enabling plural governance structures, while others who represent modern democratic societies are being challenged domestically by inequalities and fault-lines created by caste, colour, religion and history.

However, the BRICS nations do have a historic opportunity - post the global financial crisis and the recent upheavals in various parts of the world - to create or rebuild a new sustainable and relevant multilateral platform that will seek to serve the interests of the emerging world as well as manage the great shift from the west to the east.

Indeed, two out of the five economies in BRICS-China and Russia-have already emerged, and are veritable heavyweights in any relevant global political and economic discourse, while India, Brazil and South Africa are emerging rapidly.

In such a scenario, BRICS nations can play a much bigger role in the world management by systematically creating frameworks offering policy and development options for the emerging and developing world and assume the role of a veritable policy think tank for such nations, very similar to the role played by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the 20th-century world.

BRICS must now move on from being a grouping of individual nations, discussing agendas, to becoming a "go-to" institution for setting regional and global agendas. The Fourth BRICS Academic Forum meeting will attempt to address these imperatives.

ORF had been the Indian coordinating institute for the BRICS Academic Forum meetings in the last three years. (ANI)