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Monitoring Desk: The BRICS Summit has started in Kazan Russia under the presidency of Russia. The Summit will have three key tracks (pointers), including politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian ties among member states.

Officially, BRICS is an informal group of states; therefore, it cannot be compared with any other global group, such as SCO, NATO, SAARC, the African Union, the European Union, etc.

As many as 24 countries will be represented by their heads and eight by their senior officials in the Kazan Summit that will conclude on October 24, 2024. The theme of the Summit is “strengthening multilateralism for just global development and security” and the event will be attended by four new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.

Representatives of Turkiye, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Thailand, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nigeria will also attend the event as non-members because they have applied for their membership.

When asked to comment, Chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute & Pakistan-Africa Institute for Development and Research (PAIDAR) Mushahid Hussain Syed said that BRICS is an important pillar of the emerging alternate global order, reflecting the new ground realities in the international system where the center of global gravity has shifted from the West to the Global South.

“BRICS will seek to promote what are, in my opinion, 3 Key D’s: Democratisation of international relations, multipolarity requiring a multilateral approach; Demilitarization of International Relations, a world connected through commerce & culture rather than a militaristic mindset seeking conflict & cold war; Dedollarisation, sobering there’s genuine free trade not use of Dollar & Trade as a weapon seeking sanctions and financial control”, responded Mushahid Syed.

When asked to comment, senior journalist and Editor of Express Tribune Naveed Hussain, believed that the West looks at BRICS as a potential future threat as nine BRICS nations make up 28.3% of the world’s land area and 44.6% of its population with their combined GDP of $29 trillion and representing 27.4% of the global economy.

Foreign Affairs expert and author Shazia Anwer Cheema when asked to comment, believed that the future of the global economy lies with Global South and BRICS as well as SCO would soon tail each other instead of moving parallel because both demand a new world order based on collective economic strategy, multilateral trade and cooperation to build a peaceful world where sanctions would not increase poverty and protectionism would not be the order of the day.

Dr Sajjad Bokhari, a senior journalist and anchor who focuses on foreign affairs was of the view India that is founding member of BRICS will try its best to block Pakistan’s membership because New Delhi knows that the presence of Pakistan in BRICS would consolidate the Chinese position over trans-border economy and road networking and India recently rejected Chinese Road and Belt Initiative in recently held SCO Summit in Islamabad. According to Dr Sajjad, India would try to influence BRICS as it did SAARC and make the platform a dead wood. However, he added that India would fail because BRICS Russia and China as well as Brazil are far stronger and bigger countries than India.