A Lecture on ‘Co-operation among Emerging Economies and Global Governance: Lessons from BRICS Experience’ was delivered by Ambassador Anil Sooklal, Deputy Director, DIRCO, South Africa at the Baker Auditorium, CDS on January 30, 2019.
Prof Sunil Mani, Director, CDS introduced Ambassador Sooklal to the audience. He said that he is presently the Deputy Director, DIRCO, South Africa. He started his career as a secondary school teacher and subsequently joined the University of Durban where he took two doctoral degrees in religious studies and oriental history. In the early part of his career, he was political counsellor in India in the South African High Commission in India. Thereafter, he was also the Ambassador to the European Union and later Political Counsellor to the UN. He is also a visiting Professor to many universities around the world. In addition to this, he has published quite extensively too. Prof Mani also extended a warm welcome to Prof Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General of RIS through whom the lecture was made possible. Prof Mani mentioned that Prof Chaturvedi was a great friend of CDS and that several CDS students have had the opportunity to spend time at the RIS.
Ambassador Sooklal started the lecture by saying that it was a privilege and honour to be visiting and lecturing at this wonderful campus at CDS. He was thankful to RIS and Prof Chaturvedi for making this possible. The lecture outlined the history of BRICS and the developing world and about the joining of South Africa to BRICS during the 1st Summit in 2011. He said that in 2013 South Africa hosted the summit which concentrated on economic and financial cooperation. Several meeting had been hosted till 2018 on the international level of interaction and cooperation. He said that cooperation of areas mainly focused on insecurity, economic cooperation, people to people interaction and institutional cooperation. He said that the BRICS Business Council was floated in 2013. Ambassador Sooklal concluded the lecture by saying that the cooperation between all the members of BRICS is a very solid one, so also is the desire to move together and impact positively on the global environment.
The lecture was followed by an informal interactive session with students, research scholars and those from the audience.
Professor Sunil Mani thanked Ambassador Sooklal for finding time to come and share his thoughts with the CDS. He extended a warm welcome to anyone who wants to visit the centre from South Africa. Prof. Mani also thanked Prof Sachin Chaturvedi for enabling the visit of Ambassador Sooklal to the CDS.