A bigger BRICS, shaped by India’s vision

GS-II: International Relations | BRICS | Global Governance | Multipolarity | Technology | Sustainable Development

Context

• BRICS summit New Delhi (September 12–13, 2026) | 18th BRICS Summit: The upcoming BRICS summit to be held in New Delhi will be a historic one for a few reasons.
• Rise of BRICS: Because it features eleven major member states and almost 10 associate nations. As an economic bloc measured in purchasing power parity, its combined GDP is larger than that of the G-7, and it is one of the most significant transcontinental groupings outside the West.
• Tech Utopian Armes Race: A glorious technological arms race has begun over technologies weaponisable, from machine intelligence to quantum computing, and the great powers are competing.

India’s BRICS Moment

• Sustained Preparation: India has created a preparation model based on the successful G-20 Summit Model studied by Vice President Kamala Harris at the 2023 G-20 Summit in New Delhi.
• Meetings Across the Country: India held close to 350 meetings in various cities, including over 20 at the ministerial level during the period.
• What does India WANTS to DO: As per each countries main goal, India in the same time announced it would push for — BRICS Reinvigorated: Building resilience, innovation and cooperation for sustainable development (The New BIRCS acronym).
• Highlighting India’s interests while also refining the BRICS agenda: Through these priorities, India is attempting to both refocus and refine the BRICS agenda.
• Three Traditional Pillars: BRICS has historically had three pillars — political and security; finance and the economy; and culture and people-to-people exchanges.
• India Focal: Stressing that all three pillars are intertwined but importantly focused on the second and third rather than the political and security pillar portion of it.
• Geopolitical Issues: The leaders of BRICS would have to take the call about major geopolitical developments of our times. That said, the meetings chaired by India so far have led to concrete results.
• BRICS Is Too Big to Disregard: No matter the summit outcomes among leaders of this institution, BRICS has a lot of highlights in action. BRICS is now too big to ignore or fail.

Building Resilience, Driving Innovation

Building Resilience

• BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence: BRICS has set up Brics Digital C entre of Excellence for Smart Grids and          Energy Storage, which can enhance cooperation on various energy-related technology.
• BRICS Logistics Supply Chains Cooperating Framework: Adoption of this framework fosters cooperation and builds resilience in logistics and supply chains.
• Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture: BRICS has established the Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture.
• Importance For The Long Term: When operationalised, such initiatives will be the ballast needed for BRICS countries to be truly resilient.

Driving Innovation

• Start-up Innovation Fund: India asked the member countries to establish a start-up innovation fund in order to enhance cooperation on innovation and entrepreneurship within BRICS.
• Incubator Network: A incubator network targeted at providing more support to new businesses and innovation has also been suggested.
• Digital public infrastructure repository — A digital public infrastructure repository can enable sharing of knowledge and practice across BRICS.
• Science and Research Repository: Another proposal addressed working together in scientific research through a science and research repository.
• Scientific Collaboration: BRICS Working Group on research infrastructures and mega science projects action plan can promote further scientific collaboration.
• Significance for Uneven Development: They have the potential to further BRICS members that are unequal concerning scientific research.

Strengthening Cooperation

• Review Multilateral Trading System: BRICS leaders are also likely to deliberate upon recommendations of pragmatism meant to revitalise the multilateral trading system, which in-turn strengthens economic cooperation between members.
• Mental Wellness — Another area of suggested collaboration is the establishment of mental wellness centers of excellence.
• Urbanisation Forum of BRICS: The BRICS urbanisation forum under the Intersessional Group.
• Digital Capacity of Women: This component is included in the cooperation agenda with a focus on improving women’s digital capacity.
• Education and Youth Skilling: Deeper collaboration in the area of education and youth skilling can offer immediate gains to the population in BRICS member countries.
• MSME Cooperation — BRICS Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Cooperation Portal is an instrument to enhance cooperation between MSMEs.
• People-Focused Collaboration: In BRICS countries, these collaborative ventures translate directly into tangible gains for the common people, leading to more human-centric cooperation among each member state.

Sustainability as a Priority

• The Indian BRICS agenda includes sustainability as one of its key elements.
• Brazil’s Agenda on a Strong Foundation: The Brazilians had success last year in placing sustainability at the centre of their BRICS agenda, and India wants to build on that.
• Combat Desertification: One of the highlighted areas of cooperation is combatting desertification.
• Disaster Management: BRICS aims to formulate standard guidelines for disaster management forest-fire preparedness.
• Sustainable Aviation Fuels — BRICS forum on sustainable aviation fuels.
• Climate Resilience: BRICS aims to promote climate resilience through a people-centered and community-based approach to adaptation.
• Why Adapt: Journalists often focus solely on global warming as if leaving no space for local action.

Central Tenet of India’s Agenda

• Collaborative Platform: The essence of the Indian agenda is synonamous with creating a platform for collaborative organsisation among BRICS nations.
• Share knowledge: You are focusing on about sharing of knowledge & best practices.
• Collaborative Research: It enables member states to conduct collaborative research.
• Capacity building – It also encourages capacity building so that countries with different levels of development can attain benefits through cooperation.
• People-Centric Sustainability: The campaigns embody a practical people-centric, humanity-first approach and emphasize real-time cooperation with tangible benefits for the people.

Caveat for BRICS

• Steering Clear from Geopolitical Currents: BRICS should not get caught in geopolitical currents — which are not necessarily of its own making and for sure not of any strategic value to or interest for its members.
• Focus Beyond Individual Leaders: Rather than thinking of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi as the leaders of three-fourths of BRICS, the real goal should be making the grouping itself realize its potential.

Conclusion

• The upcoming 18th BRICS Summit is an important opportunity for India to realign and recalibrate the agenda of BRICS with a renewed focus on resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability. Efforts under Indian leadership aim to establish functional collaboration through knowledge sharing, co-creation and capacity building.
• The question of BRICS’ potential to augment strategic choice and facilitate a multipolar world depends less on whether more countries may yet join than it does on how BRICS remains focused on genuine issues of commonality outside geopolitical tempests serving none of its members, as the group’s significance grows commensurate with its economic and geopolitical prominence.

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. “BRICS is now too big to be ignored or to fail”? Write about how India’s emphasis on resilience, innovation, collaboration and sustainability can help BRICS realise its full potential in a world that is increasingly multipolar and uncertain.