Guwahati hosts BRICS Youth Summit-2016

Assam's Guwahati City recently played host to the BRICS Youth Summit, which brought together youngsters from five BRIC nations to empower them and strengthen their young minds.

Over 50 youth from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa gathered in Guwahati for the event.

The BRICS Youth Summit was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The last summit was held in Russia in 2015.

Guwahati was chosen as the venue for the international summit to expose youth from the remote northeast region to international platforms.

The theme of the summit was "Youth as Bridge for Intra-BRICS Exchanges".

The event was graced by DoNER minister Dr. Jitendra Singh and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal along with ministers and head of executive authorities on youth affairs from BRICS nations.

Dr. Singh said, "BRICS nations comprise 43 per cent of the world population with 37 per cent GDP and 17 per cent of world trade. They hold the key to the future of 21st century. We need to work seriously, judiciously and assiduously."

Chief Minister Sonowal said, "BRICS summit has provided an international platform to the youth and the students of Northeast to put forward their opinions. This is for the first time BRICS summit is being held here in India that to in the city of Guwahati ,this is itself a proud moment for us. It is the biggest platform."

The BRICS Youth Summit plays an important role to promote culture and traditions of the member nations.

Various programmes were held during the event to showcase the vivid culture of each of the participating country.

The Youth summit focused on an array of issues including skill development, entrepreneurship, social inclusions, youth volunteerism and youth participation in governance.

A South African delegate said, "I am really excited about the exchange programme that will be taking place between the countries I feel as South Africans we are not exposed to other parts of the world. So it will be really exciting to go to other parts of the world and just to see how life is and get exposed because I believe that if u knows more u do more."

Gaiytri Bhuyan, an Assamese, said, "We came up with a lot of good recommendations and in three days we learnt a lot from each other Russia, South Africa they have really good policies. Most importantly we have built really good friendship and from there we want to take this forward in the next summit."

The BRICS Summit has called for shifting of power from the West to the member countries to maintain a balance in the world thereby strengthening the bond between all the nations and bringing on more development in these nations and the society as whole.

Such endeavour will provide an exposure to the youths of the nation to come forward and share their views and opinions and develop ideas for the socio-economic development of the nation.