Thought for the day
” History does
nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is
men, real, living, who do all this.”
-
Karl Marx (German, 1818-1883)
Word for the day
Writhen (adj)
Twisted
(Source:
Dictionary.com)
Teaser for the day
BRICS Bank - Delhi gets the corner office,
Shanghai all other jobs!
A new star is born
This is part of "a system of measures that
would help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some
foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies." -
Russian president Vladimir Putin
“The BRICS are gaining political weight and demonstrating
their role in the international arena.” - Brazilian President Dilma
Rousseff.
"We are pleased to announce the signing of the Treaty
for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an
initial size of US$ 100 billion. This arrangement will have a positive
precautionary effect, help countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures,
promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net
and complement existing international arrangements. The Agreement is a
framework for the provision of liquidity through currency swaps in response to
actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures."
Official BRICS summit statement
Establishment of a new multilateral development bank on the
lines of International Monetary Fund (IMF) by leading emerging economies
nations is potentially a watershed development in global financial markets.
Viewing this development just as an effort by five BRICS nations
(Brazil, Russia, INDIA, China, and South Africa) would be myopic. It would also
be inappropriate, in my view, to view this event as just a protest response
against delay in implementing IMF reforms as promised in 2010 in the wake of
global financial crisis. or assertion of their collective dominance by BRICS
leadership in the international arena.
I view this as yet another development in the process of
multi-polarization of the world. With a tinge of the memories of pre-cold war
era, I feel a financial alliances like BRICS could provide a much better
balance to the world against strategic alliances like NATO.
Many are seeing this as an effort to set up a final currency war
to displace USD from world's sole reserve currency position.
Last month, Putin's security advisor, Sergey Glaziev, in a hard
hitting article
had stressed on the need to establish an international alliance of countries
willing to get rid of the dollar in international trade and refrain from using
dollars in their currency reserves. The objective, according to her, should be
to break the Washington's money printing machine that is feeding its
military-industrial complex and giving the US ample possibilities to spread
chaos across the globe, fueling the civil wars in Libya, Iraq, Syria and
Ukraine.
I hope the BRICS leaders are not working with this design in
mind. Indubitably, it is important to have counter balance in the global
financial markets overwhelmingly dominated by US and EU. However, if the
primary objective is to teach US a lesson, it will not work, in my view.
It would be interesting to see how fast and how big this
institution grows in next decade or so. In my view, we shall see many more
emerging economies especially from South East Asia and Latin America joining
this new development bank in next few year, giving it a wider acceptance and
stronger base.
One only wishes that this does not meet the fate of non-aligned
movement (NAM.! Amen!
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