Come September: BRICS, SCO, UNGA and many more meetings scheduled for PM Modi

This is the third time India is holding the chair of the BRICS grouping. (Photo Source: Reuters/File)

Next month is diplomatically a very busy month with multilateral summits scheduled to take place though of course in virtual and hybrid format. Meetings including the 13^th edition of BRICS summit, SCO meeting in Tajikistan and UNGA in the US are all taking place in September and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Stage is set for the 13^th edition of the BRICS Summit which will take place in a virtual format on September 9, 2021.

This is the third time India is holding the chair of the BRICS grouping. The leaders of five member countries: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, President Xi Jinping of China and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, will be participating virtually.

BRICS Summit Theme

‘BRICS @ 15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus’ is the theme.

The grouping will be celebrating its 15^th anniversary. The first ever meeting of the BRIC Foreign Ministers had taken place on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.

This year’s theme according to sources is a reflection of India’s efforts to further strengthen the founding principles of the grouping which is based on three Cs – consensus, consolidation and continuity.

Agenda of the summit under India’s Chairship

In 2021 the focus is going to be on specific deliverables across all three pillars of intra-BRICS cooperation in 2021. These pillars are: Economic & Financial; Political and Security; and Cultural and People to People.

From India’s point of view:

Political and Security: To focus on global political space on prosperity and peace and security and counter terrorism. Reformation of the multilateral system is on agenda too.

Economic and Financial: Implementation of the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2020-25; Cooperation on Disaster Resilience; Operationalization of the BRICS Agriculture Research Platform; Digital Health and Traditional Medicine; and Innovation Cooperation.

Cultural and People to People:  Enhance intra-BRICS people to people contacts; regular exchange programmes for young scientists and parliamentarians and also regular exchanges in academics, culture, sports and business.

Ahead of the summit, so far around 50 meetings have taken place under India’s Chairship and issues related to dealing with the global pandemic of COVID-19, supporting the TRIPS waiver for COVID 19 vaccines at World Trade Organisation (WTO). This was proposed by India and has been backed by South Africa.

More meetings are slated this month under India’s Chairship and this includes a meeting on August 24^th of the National Security Advisors; Heads of the Space Agencies will meet later next week; followed by a meeting of Agriculture and environment ministers on August 27, 2021. End of this month there will be BRICS Youth Summit from August 29-31 and Digital Health Summit from August 24-26.

BRICS Counter-Terrorism Action Plan is expected to be adopted during the BRICS NSAs meeting. This plan was finalized last month when the working group had met.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO

Mid September Heads of State of SCO are scheduled for summit level talks in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe from September 16-17. The Central Asian nation Tajikistan is the chair of the grouping. There are 8 member states including India, Russia, China and Pakistan. And there are 4 Central Asian countries –Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

United Nations General Assembly

The 76^th session of the UNGA will take place in hybrid mode due to the global pandemic of COVID-19. The President-elect of the seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly is Maldives Foreign minister Abdulla Shahid, whose candidature was strongly backed by India.

As has been reported earlier, this is the first time that a Maldives national is heading the presidency of the UN body and the tenure is for a year. And for the first time India’s deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Nagaraj Naidu is his Chef du Cabinet.