India to host BRICS Digital Health Summit to boost digital healthcare

India will host a BRICS Digital Health Summit on innovative solutions to a healthy lifestyle that will seek to integrate digital technology with healthcare informatics and diagnostics.

Divulging details on the recently concluded BRICS summit in Brazil, TS Tirumurti, Secretary, Economic Relations (Ministry of External Affairs), said, "The Prime Minister has announced that India will host a BRICS Digital Health Summit on innovative solutions to healthy lifestyle which will seek to integrate digital technology with healthcare informatics and diagnostics," adding that the initiative will be in tandem with Modi's 'Fit India' movement.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by an official delegation to the Brazilian capital on Wednesday to address the 11th BRICS summit under the theme of 'Economic growth for an innovative future'.

A large business delegation was already present here, said Tirumurti, which attended the BRICS Business forum yesterday where the business representatives of all the five countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, were represented.

This was the Prime Minister's second visit to Brazil. After his remarks at the concluding session of the BRICS Business Forum, the Prime Minister, on the same day, held separate bilateral talks with his counterparts from China, Brazil, and Russia. The closing ceremony then followed by a welcome dinner hosted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

This morning, the MEA Secretary further added that a photo of the BRICS closed-door session was held wherein discussions were focused on the challenges and opportunities for the exercise of national sovereignty in the contemporary world.

In a statement, the Prime Minister underlined the importance of a rule-based world order which represents diversity and equality and eschews unilateral policies or the use of force. He stressed the challenges to sovereignty arising from a range of factors including terrorism which seeks to undermine the nation-state.

The restricted session was then followed by the BRICS Plenary session, where the leaders discussed intra-BRICS cooperation for the economic development of BRICS societies. Prime Minister Modi welcomed the BRICS summit deliverables on a range of areas including innovation, network, architecture and the establishment of the BRICS Women's Alliance, he said.

During the plenary session, Modi also placed special emphasis on intra-BRICS trade and goods and services and welcomed the BRICS joint statements endorsement on reformed multilateralism.

At the same time, the Prime Minister also announced his intention to build on the workshops hosted on traditional medicine and have a BRICS Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on traditional medicine, an initiative that was taken up under India's presidency of BRICS in 2016.

Modi also proposed to hold the first meeting of BRICS Water Ministers in India in order to push for sustainable water management and clean sanitation.

"Sustainable water management and sanitation are important challenges in urban areas. I propose to hold the first meeting of BRICS Water Ministers in India," he said.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to see an increase in contacts and exchanges between BRICS nations in the fitness and health sectors.

He underlined that the BRICS mechanism and processes should be outcome-driven and efficient in order to address global economic challenges.

In addition, since India has been a world leader in film production and technology India will host the BRICS film technology symposium in conjunction with FICCI frames in Mumbai in March 2020.

Terrorism has been an important focus in BRICS. Brazil has hosted the first BRICS seminar on strategies to counter-terrorism, Tirumurti stated.

BRICS has also set up five sub-working groups on terrorism. The Prime Minister announced that India will host a BRICS workshop on digital forensics. He also announced that India will host the BRICS youth summit with a focus on areas like startups, hackathon, games, and others. This is in keeping with the people-to-people initiative undertaken by India during our presidency in 2016, he said.

After completing his fruitful engagements during his two-day trip to the South American country, the Prime Minister, in the evening, emplaned for India.