~ Joe Athialy

After the storm of demonetisation, which unsettled the economy back home, India is hosting the 2nd annual meeting of New Development Bank (NDB) from March 31 – April 2. NDB is the financial arm of BRICS – a grouping of emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formed in 2006. Significantly, NDB annual meeting in Delhi is close on the heals of the BRICS summit India hosted in Goa, in October 2016, which is said to have not only failed, but was an embarassment for India on many counts.

NDB came into existence at the BRICS Summit at Fortaleza, Brazil in 2014 and started its operations in 2015 with the establishment of its headquarters at Beijing, China and appointment of its first President M V Kamath, who was the Chariman of ICICI Bank in India. The first annual meeting was help in Shanghai, China in…