The 8th BRICS summit ended with the adoption of the Goa Declaration which pledged opposition to terrorism, even as India failed to get a consensus on references to “cross-border terror” and Pakistan-based terror groups in the final statement. However, in a strongly worded statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the most serious direct threat to our economic prosperity is terrorism. Tragically, its mother-ship is a country in India’s neighbourhood. The text of the declaration did not name any country specifically as the source of cross-border terrorism but officials maintained that India did get the diplomatic edge it wanted from the summit.
Introducing the Goa Declaration, PM Modi opined that we also agreed that those who nurture, shelter, support and sponsor such forces of violence and terror are as much a threat to us as the terrorists themselves and the neighbouring countries as well. It is time to resist terrorism at all levels and that is possible only when all the countries in sub-continent join hands to see the end of terrorism. The mother-ship of terrorism Pakistan needs to condemned and cautioned for all the trouble they take to upset the sovereignty of India.
Anandambal Subbu
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
