CONFERENCES
27th ASEAN leaders Summit 2015
27th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders summit held in Kaula Lumpur, Malaysia. This summit was chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. In this summit, the leaders of 10 nations grouping signed a declaration for launching ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) like European Union. The declaration was signed in front of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
China hosts 1st BRICS media summit
China hosted the first Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) media summit in Beijing for creating an alternative media platform for the 5 emerging economies. 25 media organisations participated in the 2 day summit which aimed to create a new institutional framework to benefit the media of five emerging economies of BRICS grouping. In the first summit, leaders of 25 Media organisations from the 5 BRICS countries pitched for building consensus to deal with climate change, terrorism,and other key global issues.
26th Conference of Southern Zonal Council held in Vijayawada
The 26th Conference of Southern Zonal Council (SZC) was held on 12 December 2015 at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. The conference was chaired by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The conference was attended by Ministers of five states-Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala and Puducherry. The five states and Puducherry together form the Southern Zonal Council. The conference deliberated issues of common interest to the members of the council such as peninsular region industrial corridor, coastal security, introduction of peninsular tourism trains and finalisation of inter-State reciprocal transport agreement. Some other substantial issues of Centre State and Inter-State matters were also discussed in the conference.
Combined Commanders Conference on INS Vikramaditya
Combined Commanders Conference, an annual triservices event chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was held on board INS Vikramaditya about 50 kms off Kochi coast. This is the first time when the conference was held outside New Delhi. It was attended by Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, all three services chiefs and other senior officers of three armed services. The Conference is also known as the Unified Commanders’ Conference (UCC). During this conference India’s defence policy, doctrine and operational challenges are discussed in detail. Prime minister also reviewed exercise like firing of surface-to-surface missile by INS Nirghat during this conference. Prior to conference PM revived the tri-services guard of honour at Southern Naval Command.
14th Meeting of Heads of Governments of SCO Member
The 14th Meeting of the Heads of Governments (Prime Ministers) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States on Regional Economic Cooperation was held in Zhengzhou, China. Key discussions include : Exchanged views on a wide range of issues of international and regional economic growth. Discussed prospects and measures for improving economic and humanitarian cooperation for further strengthening of mutual understanding and traditional friendship between peoples of the SCO member states. Leaders issued a joint statement on regional economic cooperation which emphasized the importance of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative for developing infrastructure in the region.