Which one of the following was the venue of 2nd BRICS Youth Summit of the Ministers, Officials and Youth Delegations ?
- (a)New Delhi
- (b)Mumbai
- (c)Shillong
- (d)Guwahati
Correct — D, Guwahati. The 2nd BRICS Youth Summit was held at Guwahati in Assam from 1 to 3 July 2016, while India held the BRICS chairmanship for that year. Ministers and heads of youth-affairs authorities from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa attended along with youth delegations from the five countries. The theme was 'Youth as bridge for intra-BRICS exchanges', the sessions covered skill development and entrepreneurship, social inclusion, youth volunteering and youth participation in governance, and the meeting closed by adopting the Guwahati BRICS Youth Summit 2016 Call to Action.
- (a)New Delhi — The obvious guess for any international meeting in India, and wrong here. India's 2016 chairmanship spread its BRICS meetings across several cities rather than concentrating them in the capital — the leaders met in Goa and the youth in Assam.
- (b)Mumbai — India's financial capital is a plausible venue for a large international gathering, but the 2016 youth summit went to the north-east, not to Mumbai.
- (c)Shillong — Shillong is the near-miss option — the right region, the wrong city. The summit was in Assam's largest city, Guwahati, not in Meghalaya's capital.
BRICS began as a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with the chairmanship rotating annually. The chair hosts a leaders' summit plus a long calendar of ministerial, official and people-to-people meetings through the year, of which the Youth Summit is one. India chaired the grouping in 2016 and deliberately took these meetings to cities across the country.
Venue questions are best prepared by attaching each big event to its city for the year in question. For India's 2016 chairmanship the two anchors worth remembering are the Youth Summit at Guwahati in July and the 8th BRICS Leaders' Summit at Benaulim in Goa on 15 and 16 October. BRICS has since expanded beyond the five founding members, so the grouping a candidate reads about today is larger than the one that met in 2016.
- The 2nd BRICS Youth Summit was held at Guwahati, Assam, from 1 to 3 July 2016.
- Its theme was 'Youth as bridge for intra-BRICS exchanges' and it adopted a Call to Action named after the host city.
- India chaired BRICS through 2016 and hosted the 8th Leaders' Summit at Benaulim, Goa, on 15 and 16 October 2016.
- The founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa; the grouping has taken in new members since.
- Defaulting to New Delhi for any summit held in India.
- Confusing the Youth Summit with the Leaders' Summit of the same year — different cities, different months.
NDA asks for the host city or host country of a named international event, so revise each year's big meetings as an event-and-place list.
Consider the following statements: 1. New Development Bank has been set up by APEC. 2. The headquarters of New Development Bank is in Shanghai. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) 2 only
The institutional side of the same grouping, asked in the very year India chaired it. The New Development Bank is a BRICS creation, not an APEC one — the kind of grouping-to-institution link both exams test.
Which among the following was the host country of the United Nations World Environment Day, 2022?
- (a) Canada
- (b) Sweden
- (c) South Africa
- (d) Brazil
Answer(b) Sweden
The same host-of-the-event question, moved from a city inside India to a country abroad. NDA sets one of these almost every session, and the preparation is identical — event, year, place.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The 8th BRICS Leaders' Summit, held under India's chairmanship in October 2016, took place in which State?
- (a)Assam
- (b)Goa
- (c)Gujarat
- (d)Karnataka
Answer(b) Goa — the summit was held at Benaulim on 15 and 16 October 2016.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is a founding member of BRICS?
- (a)Indonesia
- (b)South Africa
- (c)Egypt
- (d)Iran
Answer(b) South Africa — it joined Brazil, Russia, India and China to complete the original five.