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Abstract: BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are viewed currently as pillars of relative political, economic and financial stability, with the prospect of a major shift in future world power. The paper aims at investigating the relationships among the economic, financial and political country risk ratings of the BRICS and relating those risk factors to their respective national stock markets in the presence of representatives of the world's major stock markets and oil market. It also examines the interrelationships among the national country financial risk ratings factors to discern transmission of the risk spectrum among the countries of this group because of the relevance of this information to investors, traders and policy makers. The results demonstrate that only the Chinese stock market is sensitive to all the factors. Financial risk ratings generally demonstrate more sensitivity than economic and political risk ratings, and political risk is sensitive to both financial and economic risk ratings. Among the five BRICS, Brazil shows special sensitivity to economic and financial risks, while Russia and China hold strong sensitivity to political risk and India demonstrates special sensitivity to higher oil prices. Among the global factors, oil price is more sensitive to economic than financial risk, while the S&P 500 reverses this relationship. The two American quantitative easings (QEs) affect BRICS differently. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on field investigations of initiatives to increase stakeholder participation in water management in Brazil and India, this paper provides insights into the practice of water sector reforms. Looking at the pace of reforms across both countries, we find that the process of creating institutions to facilitate stakeholder participation is proceeding rapidly but greater attention is required on administrative reforms and capacity building. We find that the supply and demand of participation opportunities is often mismatched, and that participation reforms in the water sector may follow two very different paths: the bureaucratic and the entrepreneurial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how countries such as India and China have shown they can move beyond western imitation to homegrown innovation in certain fields, such as telecommunications and information technology. The same is increasingly true of biotechnology, argues a report just published in Nature Biotechnology by a group at the University of Toronto. The study looks at the state of medical biotechnology in six developing countries--Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, India and South Africa--and one recently industrialised one, South Korea, to understand what it takes to build a healthy biotech sector. Many of the countries studied, which began investing in biotech in the 1980s, are starting to see the fruits of their labour. The number of scientific papers on health biotechnology published by researchers in Brazil and Cuba, for example, more than tripled between 1991 and 2002. Much of the biotech industry in the developing world is based on copying western innovation. But such generic manufacturing can be a springboard to more innovative activities. India's pharmaceutical firms are playing an important role in the global fight against AIDS by selling generic versions of anti-retroviral drugs at a fraction of the price charged by their western inventors in the rich world. There are plenty of other hurdles that the countries studied in the report need to tackle before their biotech blossoms fully. Brazil needs better links between academia and industry. Egypt's budding biotechnologists are short of cash from both government and private sources. India's regulatory system is slowing down product development. South Africa needs to do more to reverse its brain drain, and train more researchers to boost their ranks.

The article discusses how the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICS) have helped poorer nations emerge from the global recession. According to the article, the study "Global Financial Crisis Discussion Paper Synthesis (phase 2)" by Dirk Willem te Velde from the Overseas Development Institute found that emerging powers affect the growth prospects of poorer ones. How the BRICS' deals have affected trade and foreign direct investment from the West to Africa are discussed.