Economic offenders a serious global threat – India at BRICS

In a recent BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit at Rio de Janeiro, Indian Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Gen (retd) VK Singh said the objective of the powerful grouping should be to develop common approaches to address the issue of terrorism. The minister wanted to use the platform to highlight the issue of world economic stability due to the serious economic offenders.

Another major topic of discussion at the summit was how the BRICS nations can work together to ensure a mechanism is developed so that such fugitives are not able to get away for the serious economic crimes. This is imperative for the economic stability and the growth, which unfortunately world over has become a huge challenge.

The major step towards bringing these offenders to the books are information sharing and capacity building which can help these nations work in close knit groups to bring these culprits to the place where they belong. Minister Singh also pointed out the 9 point strategy that PM Modi had already spoken about last year. These are strong and active international cooperation, cooperation in legal processes, extradition, exchange of information, and stopping entry and safe haven to fugitive economic offenders amongst other action points which can help bring down the menace of these economic offenders.

India has been grappling with the issue of absconders for a very long time including the very recent ones Vijay Mallya and NiravModi. Vijay Mallya defrauded the banks under the once super successful airlines company called Kingfisher Airlines, absconded with over Rs 9,000 crores due towards the Indian Banks. Similarly once a diamond king NiravModi defrauded the Indian Banks mainly PNB (Punjab Nation Bank) of Rs 13,000 crores, though some experts put this figure to as high as Rs 22,000 crores. Both Vijay Mallya and NiravModi have absconded to the UK where both are currently fighting their case of extradition in the UK courts. NiravModi was also recently put behind bars at the behest of pressure from Indian government to send him back to India where justice can be met out to him.

The Indian minister said that India treats the menace of Counter Terrorism cooperation under BRICS as top most priority and urged the member nations to support India’s call for a Global Conference on Terrorism. “BRICS’ support for such a Global Conference would under line our commitment to a comprehensive approach to counter terrorism on a firm international legal basis and may bolster our efforts for the early conclusion of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT),” Singh said.

All the BRICS nations jointly agreed that a lot can be done in the areas of sustainable development, clean energy, skill development etc. Similarly global challenges like terrorism, maritime threats, cross border crimes, etc. needs an urgent and utmost focus by all the countries to ensure they can be uprooted fully. Especially for India that has been grappling with the terrorism linked crimes to a great level including money laundering, it is imperative that the nations come together to fight this problem. It is for common good that the countries especially the developing nations of BRICS can come together and make a huge impact in this area.

Obviously it remains to be seen how the overall geo politics plays out in implementing policies that can take this agenda ahead. With the tension between India and Pakistan at an all-time high, with China being the big brother and supporting Pakistan in blocking a lot of initiatives by India in budding terrorism, it will be a huge uphill task for India to work with China to get things done. However with the summit taking place, one can hope that the government of these countries will take some serious steps towards the common goal of terror free world.