BRICS Social

Photo taken on Dec 22, 2016 shows a telescope projecting red beacon beam at the quantum communication ground station in Lijiang, southwest China’s Yunnan province [Xinhua]China is hitting the accelerator on space exploration with Chinese scientists becoming the first to send an “unbreakable” code from a satellite to the Earth.
This marks the first time space-to-ground quantum key distribution technology has been realised, in what state agency Xinhua called “laying the foundation for building a hack-proof global quantum communication network”.

Online entertainment, especially streaming and gaming, has gained significant popularity among hundreds of millions of Chinese in the past few years [Xinhua]
Streaming video has become the most popular entertainment tool in China, the China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) said in its annual report released Thursday.
An increasing number of Chinese are using going online for entertainment, gaming and reading, the report adds.

Not only has Modi’s social media popularity been on the rise, but he is now leading the 2016 Time Person of the Year poll
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are the frontrunners of TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year Reader’s Poll, coming at 11 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.
Modi’s popularity is on the rise, as he is engaged in a battle against corruption in the financial sector; he recently ratified the Paris Climate Agreement.

Both China and India have ambitious space programs in place, while Russia continues to run the world’s only reliable “space taxi” after the US retired its space shuttles in 2011 [Xinhua]BRICS countries are aiming to set up a joint grouping of space satellites for remote sensing of Earth, Igor Komarov, the head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), was quoted by Russian media on Monday.
“Yesterday we had a first session of the head of space agencies of BRICS member states,” Komarov said. “This is a new initiative and a new format.”

This is the first exhibition in Europe to display China’s collection on the massacre since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization added the Nanjing Massacre to its Memory of the World Register in 2015 [Xinhua]
A new Chinese exhibition in the French city of Caen in northwestern France revisits the atrocities committed by Japanese Imperial soldiers in China just before World War II.

Initial preparations are well on track,” Samaranch said on Wednesday
 
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has given China a thumbs-up assessment of its preparations for the 24th Winter Olympics to be held in 2022.
The IOC’s Coordination Commission just wrapped up its first visit to Olympic sites in Beijing and reviewed snow and skiing facilities in the Zhangjiakou zone located in the Chongli District near the capital.
International Ski Federation (FIS) secretary general Sarah Lewis was one of the high profile delegates visiting Beijing’s facilities.

China’s 13th five-year plan for the period beginning 2016 and ending 2021 has taken into account a huge budget dedicated to elderly care [Xinhua]
The National Health and Family Planning Commission predicts the number of China’s elderly (above 60) to reach 240 million – or 17 per cent of the population – by 2020.
The Commission’s deputy head Liu Qian said the government would improve the medical insurance system and basic public health services.
But he also said that there were about 260 million Chinese afflicted with chronic disease.

The youth bulge leads to technological innovation as we see currently in places like southern California, Inayatullah says [Xinhua]
The BRICS economies are rising global powers whose young population and sheer size give them huge potential.
In 2015, a special edition of Policy in Focus, a United Nations Development Programme report, urged BRICS countries to focus on generating employment opportunities for youth as a means of meeting development projections.

China’s Ding Ning returns the ball against her compatriot Li Xiaoxia during the women’s singles gold medal match of table tennis at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug. 10, 2016 [Xinhua]China’s Ding Ning edged past teammate and defending champion Li Xiaoxia 4-3 in a blockbuster final to win the women’s singles table tennis title and the 10th gold for China at the Rio Games on Wednesday.
After Wednesday’s finals, the United States leads the gold medal table with 11 golds, as China and Japan were at second and third spots with 10 and 6 golds respectively.

Fireworks at the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug. 5, 2016 [Xinhua]In a historic first for South America, the Olympic Games opened in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
Brazil’s acting president Michel Temer declared open the games at a colourful ceremony at the iconic Maracana Stadium, before retired marathon runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima lit the Olympic cauldron.