India attends 6th BRICS Parliamentary Forum
On October 27, 2020, Indian Parliamentary delegation under the leadership of Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla attended the sixth BRICS Parliamentary Forum. It was chaired by the Chairman of State Duma of the Federal Assembly of Russia.
The speakers and members of other BRICS parliaments such as Brazil, China and South Africa participated in the meeting. The forum was held virtually under the theme
Theme: BRICS Partnership in the interest of Global Stability, Innovative Growth and General Safety: Parliamentary dimension.
Highlights
The forum discussed improvement in quality of life of people in BRICS countries, social protection of citizens during COVID-19 pandemic, preparation of legislative initiatives in the area of public health care and economic rehabilitation in the post COVID-19 period. This includes support measures to MSMEs and development of future Parliamentary cooperation among BRICS countries.
Recent BRICS Meet
- The 10th BRICS National Security Agency Meeting was recently held in September 2020
- The BRICS Environment Ministers Meet was held in August 2020
BRICS
The aggregate population of BRICS makes up to 42% of the global population. It was formed in 2009. The New Development Bank is the BRICS bank that was established in 2014. The headquarters of the bank is located in Shanghai, China.
India and New Development Bank
The New Development Bank provided a loan of 1 billion USD to India to fight COVID-19. The loan was approved under “Emergency Assistance Programme” of the New Development Bank.
The other recent loans approved by New Development Bank are as follows
- The bank allocated 1,200 million USD for the Indore Metro Rail Project in December 2019
- It approved 312 million USD for the Water Supply and Sanitation Project of Manipur in December 2019
- 100 million USD under National Investment and Infrastructure Fund: Fund of Funds in March 2020
- 500 million USD for Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System Project in September 2020
- 241 million USD for Mumbai Metro Rail II in September 2020.
These were the only loans approved by the bank to India between December 2019 and October 2020.
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Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020