The BRICS summit in New Delhi (September 12-13, 2026) can be a landmark one for a few causes. First, it takes place towards the backdrop of geopolitical turbulence unleashed by a mix of forces: raging wars and conflicts, a breakdown in international governance and the altering nature of world alliances. Second, the BRICS now has 11 outstanding members (and about 10 of them who’re accomplice international locations) and its collective financial output (in buying energy parity) outstrips that of the G-7, making it the one of many largest and most essential transcontinental grouping outdoors of the West. Final however not the least, technological forces reminiscent of synthetic intelligence and quantum computing are being weaponised with each nice powers making an attempt to win the battle for tech supremacy.
India’s BRICS second
India have to be credited with thorough preparation for this summit. In some ways, India has adopted the profitable template established when it hosted the G-20 Summit in New Delhi in 2023. In the same vein, round 350 conferences had been carried out by India in cities throughout the nation, with as many as 22 held on the ministerial stage. India has introduced that it’s going to give attention to “constructing resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability”, thus giving a brand new twist to the BRICS acronym. In doing so, India is looking for to refocus and recalibrate the BRICS agenda.
BRICS has historically comprised three pillars: political and safety; finance and the financial system; and, lastly, tradition and people-to-people exchanges. Whereas all three pillars are essential and, certainly, interlinked to an extent, it’s the view of this author that the agenda pursued by India relates extra to the second and third pillars than to the primary. The leaders will largely determine what to do with the massive geopolitical problems with our occasions. Nevertheless, substantive outcomes appear assured, given the end result of the conferences chaired by India to date. Therefore, this author’s sentiment is that, it doesn’t matter what occurs on the summit stage, BRICS can have a lot to indicate when it comes to cooperation throughout varied areas. Fairly merely put, BRICS is now too large to both ignore or fail.
Constructing resilience, driving innovation
On the subject of resilience, the work accomplished by BRICS beneath India’s stewardship has been stellar. This contains the launch of the BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Sensible Grids and Power Storage, the adoption of the BRICS Logistics Provide Chain Cooperation Framework, and the institution of the Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture, to call only a few initiatives. As soon as operationalised, these initiatives will present the ballast wanted for BRICS international locations to change into actually resilient.
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On innovation, India has tried to push the envelope inside BRICS. Proposals reminiscent of a start-up innovation fund, an incubator community, a digital public infrastructure repository, a science and analysis repository, and the motion plan of the BRICS Working Group on analysis infrastructures and mega science tasks can be useful to all BRICS members, significantly since they don’t seem to be all on the similar stage of improvement with regards to scientific analysis.
On cooperation, the BRICS leaders will hopefully endorse suggestions pertaining to, however not restricted to, revitalising the multilateral buying and selling system; welcoming the community of centres of excellence on psychological wellness; establishing the BRICS urbanisation discussion board; enhancing the digital capability of ladies; and, extra broadly, intensifying cooperation in areas reminiscent of training, youth skilling, and the BRICS Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Cooperation Portal. All of those initiatives present concrete advantages to the person (or lady) on the street in BRICS international locations.
It’s significantly comforting to notice that “sustainability” could be very a lot a part of the Indian agenda. The Brazilians made it the centrepiece of their BRICS agenda final 12 months, and India seeks to construct on the place its Brazilian associates left off. There are particular areas of cooperation beneath this rubric: combating desertification; growing pointers for catastrophe administration and forest-fire preparedness; the BRICS discussion board on sustainable aviation fuels; and advancing local weather resilience by means of people-centric and community-based adaptation. The final of those is important, since worldwide fora are likely to focus virtually completely on mitigation.
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The central tenet of the Indian agenda, as could also be seen from above, is to create a collaborative platform that permits the sharing of data and finest practices, facilitates joint analysis, and promotes capability constructing. If this isn’t a people-centric, humanity-first strategy, then what’s?
Holding BRICS on the right track
BRICS is right here to remain and can, slowly however steadily, assist its members obtain two central goals: improve their strategic choices and drive geopolitics in direction of a very multipolar world. These are, after all, organising rules of India’s international coverage. In a world characterised by geopolitical uncertainty, different international locations, too, see huge worth in adopting a international coverage primarily based on these rules. If there’s one caveat for the BRICS grouping, it’s this: it should keep away from getting caught in geopolitical currents that aren’t essentially of its making and positively not of any strategic worth for its members. All eyes could also be on leaders reminiscent of Chinese language President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accurately. However the greater image stays that of the BRICS grouping residing as much as its full potential. The Delhi Summit should make concrete progress in direction of that finish.
Mohan Kumar is a former Indian Ambassador to France and presently Dean/Professor on the O.P. Jindal International College. The views expressed are private
Printed – September 12, 2026 12:08 am IST
