NEW DELHI : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves here tomorrow on a four-day visit to Durban in South Africa to attend a five-nation Summit on March 26 and 27 that could launch a BRICS development bank and discuss ways to reform governance in international financial institutions.
Accompanied by a high-level delegation including Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, the Prime Minister will also have an opportunity to meet with the new Chinese leadership on the Summit sidelines when he calls on President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.
The highlight of the Summit of the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) is the possible setting up of the BRICS bank. But there is no no clarity on its corpus.
The bank is expected to promote growth and investment in its member-states and other emerging markets and will be a strong voice in the lobbying for the reform of international financial institutions.
The BRICS finance ministers, who have met four times in the past on the issue, will be meeting in Durban tomorrow ahead of the Summit when a clear picture may emerge. “There are still some issues to be resolved. If everything goes well, whatever is the final decision will be included in the Summit communique,” say Indian officials.
“Things are moving on that and they are moving pretty fast,” they say. There has been speculation that the size of the bank could be about USD 50 billion.
India had last year mooted the idea of BRICs-led South- South Development Bank, mainly funded and managed by BRICS countries to recycle surpluses into investment in developing countries for infrastructure and sustainable development projects.
The new Chinese President has backed the establishment of the BRICS bank, supporting the South African Presidency’s priority in firming up that move.
The meeting of the USD 12 trillion grouping also comes at a time when the global economy is still grappling problems of slowdown. The leaders are expected to take a call on scaling up intra-BRICS trade to a new level of USD 50 billion discussed sometime ago by their commerce ministers.
The other major issue coming up at the Summit is the need for reforms of global financial governance architecture and spurring infrastructure building in the developing world.
With huge foreign exchange reserves, the BRICS economies will be campaigning hard at the Durban meet for greater voting quota for emerging powers and developing countries in the Bretton Woods institutions like World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Hoping for positive results in these areas, Xi told BRICS journalists last week that a new economic governance system must reflect the profound changes in the global economic landscape so that the representation and voice of the emerging markets in developing countries should be increased.
The BRICS finance ministers will also discuss the shareholding and quota of countries in IMF, sources said.
India will handover the Chairmanship of BRICS to South Africa which will host the Summit. The theme of the meet is ‘BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation’. The Summit will come out with Durban Declaration named as eThekwini Declaration. EThekwini is the South African name of Durban city.
South Africans are aiming at setting up a BRICS Business Council. There will also be a BRICS Business Summit which will be attended by a combined business delegation from India representing bodies like FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM. Chidambaram and Sharma will address the business meet.
On the Summit sidelines, Prime Minister Singh will also have meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, besides his South African host President Jacob Zuma.
Vahanvati had told JPC that the press note regarding 2G licences was changed at the last minute by Raja with a different pen.
“After I had recorded my approval to the note put by the DoT officials and directed them to take the opinion of the Solicitor General, my attention was drawn to the fact that the last paragraph of the draft press release was not in conformity with what had been approved on the file and previously communicated to the PM.
“It would in fact create a totally new method of grant of licences. I, therefore, deleted the last pararaph…And also recorded in the file that the press release was being approved as amended…I wish to emphasise that my note was written prior to the file being sent to the Solicitor General,” he said.
On use of different pens to write ‘approved; pl obtain Solicitor General’s opinion’ and ‘press release appd (approved) as amended’ on the same note, Raja contended that “it is purely a matter of chance” that he picked up one of the various pens on his table to write the two sentences.
“To make such a major claim of forgery/fabrication based on this fact is just without any understanding of law or practice,” he said.
Raja also claimed that Vahanvati dealt with the press release and the impact of deleting the last paragraph in various litigations in 2008, 2009 in the TDSAT, High Court and the Supreme Court.
“…And never once mentioned anywhere that this press release was different to what had been seen by him. On the contrary, he (Vahanvati) in fact defended the amended press release,” he told JPC. (AGENCIES)
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