BRICS: Focus on Terrorism

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TOPIC: General Studies 2:

• Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

In News: BRICS member states have urged for concerted efforts to fight terrorism in accordance with the international law. 

The declaration at the end of the 11th BRICS summit stressed on the need to tackle the misuse of information and communication technologies for terrorist activities and combating illicit financial laws.

Speaking at the plenary session of the summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi said terrorism has caused loss of approximately 1 trillion dollars to the world economy and 2.25 lakh people have lost their life due to terror acts in over a decade.

India’s engagement with the BRICS involves three key elements: 

1. Develop mechanisms to counter-terrorism
2. ‘Reformed multilateralism’
3. Encourage intra-BRICS trade and cooperation

Focus on terrorism remains India’s main priority and it would like to build a consensus on methods to curb the menace of global terrorism by enhancing cooperation with other BRICS countries. Russia, Brazil and South Africa may offer unconditional support, but China is unlikely to endorse India’s case if it involves Pakistan, directly or indirectly.

The BRICS joint working group on counter-terrorism has decided to constitute five sub working groups on counterterrorism in the areas of 

1. Terrorist financing
2. Use of Internet for terrorist purposes]
3. Countering radicalization
4. Issue of foreign terrorist fighters
5. Capacity-building

The comprehensive approach should include countering 

• Radicalisation
• Recruitment
• Travel of foreign terrorist fighters
• Blocking sources and channels of terrorist financing
• Dismantling terrorist bases
• Countering misuse of the Internet by terrorist entities through misuse of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Emphasis was laid on the need to launch multilateral negotiations on an international convention for the suppression of acts of chemical and biological terrorism, including at the Conference on Disarmament.

The five nations also reaffirmed their commitment to support international cooperation in combating illicit financial flows from all types of criminal activity, including within the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the World Customs Organization. They underscored the importance of improving mutual exchanges and data sharing. They emphasized the importance of upholding and supporting the objectives of FATF, as well of intensifying cooperation to implement and improve its standards on combating Money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation.

BRICS

BRICS is the acronym coined for an association of five major emerging national economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The grouping brings together five major emerging economies comprising 42 per cent of the world’s population, having 23 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product.

Must Read: Overall Analysis of BRICS Summit