BRICS Summit Kicks Off in New Delhi: Highlights

The 18th edition of the annual BRICS Summit kicks off in New Delhi, marking a central moment in India’s year-long chairship.

The two-day summit, running September 12-13, is being held under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hosting leaders of the now 11-member BRICS bloc, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, along with representatives from Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Additional dignitaries, including the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the Ethiopian Prime Minister, are attending as part of the summit’s outreach engagements.

The formal leaders’ session, themed “Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism,” commenced at 2:00 PM IST, followed by a joint photograph and tree-plantation ceremony.

Alongside the diplomatic proceedings, India’s BRICS chairship has advanced a broad economic agenda over the past year, including the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030 and the BRICS Global Value Chains Action Plan (2026–2030).

Additional initiatives include a proposed BRICS Incubator Network to link startup ecosystems across member states, and a push led by Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to expand market access and financing opportunities for women-led enterprises across the bloc.

Modi’s address highlights

PM Modi’s opening remarks at the “Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism” session framed India’s BRICS chairship around a “Humanity First,” people-centric approach, built on resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability priorities that translated into over 350 meetings across roughly 30 cities during the year.

Marking BRICS’s 20th anniversary, Modi called it a “coming of age” moment, noting the bloc’s consensus-driven identity built over two decades. He described current global governance as a “pyramid of privilege” and called for a “platform of partnership” instead urging the Global South to move from “rule-taker” to “rule-shaper,” including through UN Security Council reform.

He proposed a “BRICS Continuity and Implementation” mechanism to sustain initiatives across the annual chair rotation, and suggested members jointly draft 10 governance-reform proposals to feed into a roadmap by the next summit. He closed by stressing BRICS is “not against anyone.”

Eyes on Russia & China

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in New Delhi early Saturday for the 18th BRICS Summit, his first visit to India in nearly seven years since the 2019 informal summit in Chennai.

The visit comes as ties recover from the two countries’ deadly 2020 border clash in Ladakh. Following talk between India’s top diplomat, Vikram Misri, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, both sides agreed to resume direct air services after a nearly five-year gap and work toward resolving trade disputes. Direct Beijing-Delhi flights resumed earlier this year, alongside new Air India and IndiGo routes to Shanghai, as visa and trade restrictions eased.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also arrived for the summit. Russia has remained a steady partner for India despite US pressure, including sanctions on Indian purchases of Russian oil. On the sidelines, Putin said Russia poses no threat to European countries and has no grounds for conflict with them, while warning that any deployment of European troops to Ukraine would mean war with Russia.

He and Modi held talks to deepen bilateral ties, with Putin pitching BRICS as a platform for growth independent of Western frameworks.

The summit comes amid the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which has disrupted global supply chains and pushed energy prices higher this year, including through effects on shipping via the Strait of Hormuz, a route for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil.

Bilateral Meetings

On the sidelines of the event, Prime Minister Modi held a bilateral meeting with President Pezeshkian where the two sides discussed advancing dialogue and diplomacy to address the ongoing conflict in West Asia.

Prime Minister Modi held a series of bilateral meetings, including with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, to strengthen the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Leaders confirmed consensus on the BRICS New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, expected to condemn unilateral wars without naming any specific nation.