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A Monthly Round up of G20 Themes

  The newly sworn in President of India, Droupadi Murmu has made clear the importance India attaches to the upcoming G20 meeting of the heads of state next year. In her inaugural address President Murmu noted her expectations from the meeting. “In this grouping, twenty big countries of the world will brainstorm on global issues under the chairmanship of India”. She also added “I am sure that the conclusions and policies that will emerge from this brainstorming in India will determine the direction of the coming decades”. It was the right note to strike for the G20 process, as it gathers speed during the Indonesian Presidency. Writing in a blog for the IMF, President Kristalina Georgieva warned the global economic outlook “has darkened significantly”. She made the point that when the G20 had last met in April, the IMF had just cut its global growth forecast to 3.6 percent for this year and next. Georgieva warned this could get worse given potential downside risks. “Since then, sev...
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IBSA Women’s Forum 2021 Calls for Economic Empowerment of Women

  16 July 2021 Beena Pandey Research Associate, RIS Background   In the run-up to the forthcoming IBSA Summit in 2021 to be hosted by India, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, convened the Sixth IBSA Women’s Forum Meeting virtually on 16 March 2021 along with the IBSA member countries.  The Chair of the 6 th IBSA Women’s Forum, Hon’ble Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister of Women and Child Development, India, led the deliberations and delivered the Inaugural Address. She highlighted how the year 2020 witnessed rights of women and girls gaining prominence all over the world. Ms Damares Alves, Minister for Women, Family and Human Rights of the Federative, Republic of Brazil and Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities of the Republic of South Africa, expressed strong support for IBSA and shared their valuable perspectives on the subject. [1] It may be noted, that IBSA (India-Brazil-South Afri...
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Japan’s Preference Towards Society 5.0

  Pankhuri Gaur, Assistant Professor, RIS The developing countries are embarking on the Industry 4.0 (I4) to strengthening their manufacturing capabilities, and a new concept of Society 5.0 (S5) has emerged in recent years, which would be useful at present with increasing number of COVID-19 variants and frequency of lockdowns. The notion of S5 aims at focusing on a human centric society with greater degree of convergence of Cyber-Physical System while balancing between the economic growth and social and environmental problems. It was first proposed in the 5 th  Science and Technology Basic Plan by Japan in 2016 and subsequently adopted by the Japanese Cabinet [i] . It was further discussed in the G-20 Summit in 2019 at the B20 Summit. The S5 aims at creating new values to human beings using advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, big data and other technologies falling under I4. Society 5.0 is identified as the fifth stage...
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A European Approach to Regulate Artificial Intelligence: Possible Global Impact

  Krishna Ravi Srinivas, PhD, Consultant & Senior Fellow, RIS On 21 st April European Commission (EC) unveiled an ambitious and broad proposal on regulating Artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe. It is primarily aimed at regulating AI and its applications in European Union. However, given the role of EC as a regulator and promotor of innovation and EU being a major market for AI besides home to institutions and companies that are doing pioneering work at AI , it has global implications. The proposal (‘Regulation of The European Parliament and of The Council Laying Down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) And Amending Certain Union Legislative Acts) and Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on machinery products, will now undergo a lengthy review process at the European Parliament and at the European Council, that represents the 27 national governments. The final approved version may be different from wh...
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Debt Crisis in Emerging Markets and Global Response Measures

  Ms. Aditi Gupta  Research Assistant, RIS Introduction A recent Dev Talk by OECD on “Debt sustainability and COVID-19: what’s next for Africa and Latin America" threw light on the issue of debt sustainability in emerging markets. By the end of the first quarter of 2020, the foreign-currency debt of emerging market economies amounted to more than USD 8.4 trillion [1] . COVID-19 crisis further exacerbated the debt crisis in developing economies. The situation has worsened as local currencies have become weak, government revenues and foreign exchange reserves have fallen along with tightening of credit markets. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Lebanon have already defaulted on their debts. Average public debt ratios were expected to rise up to 70% of African countries’ GDPs by 2020 and up to 75% of Latin American countries’ GDPs by 2021. Under the COVID-19 crisis, various national governments assisted vulnerable households with unemployment benefits and subsidies and...
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Inclusion is Smart and Good But? Digital Technologies, Science and Gender

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  Krishna Ravi Srinivas, PhD, Consultant & Senior Fellow , RIS   On the Occasion of International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 th February) ,   UNESCO released a chapter from the forthcoming World Science Report (WSR) , titled as ‘ To be smart, the digital revolution will need to be inclusive’ [1] focussing on the gender dimension and the case for inclusion in, inter alia, digital technologies, innovation, and science. Given the emphasis on smart in the title of WSR, the title of the chapter is not surprising. The chapter highlights various issues in gender inclusion in Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) , AI, STEM, diversity in technology sectors, patents and intellectual property rights and the need to measure gender inclusion. In the 4IR, skills shortage that is expected can be addressed by educating and training women. “ For women to seize upon the opportunities offered by the 4IR, there will need to be a level playing field in terms of access to...
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