India to host anti-narcotic agency heads ahead of 8th BRICS summit

The one-day meeting on July 8 will be hosted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the agenda of the high-level meeting is expected to revolve around illicit drug trafficking, including diversion of precursors and chemicals, usage of new psychoactive substances, maritime drug trafficking, narco-terrorism and drug money laundering.

“All BRICS nations (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) will discuss ways to enhance cooperation to effectively deal with these issues and keep an effective monitoring on illegal narcotics transport happening between these nations. A number of probes related to narcotics smuggling and drug trafficking in the past have been seen to be connecting dots between the BRICS nations and the meeting is expected to thrash out issues related to this,” a senior official said.

India has taken over the BRICS Chairmanship this year, for the second time after 2012, and it will host the eighth annual Summit of the forum in Goa in October in its capacity as chair of the bloc comprising the five countries which account for 42 per cent of the world's population and a combined GDP of over USD 16 trillion.

The meeting of the Law Enforcement Agencies on drugs matters will also discuss various trends being observed in the last 5-6 years and a joint accord is also expected to be signed at conclusion.