The Delhi BRICS Summit
India hosted the expanded BRICS at Bharat Mandapam on 12–13 September 2026 and secured a unanimous New Delhi Declaration — a 140-point text that named the Pahalgam attack, papered over a West Asia split, and handed the 2027 chair to China.
Snapshot
The facts an examiner, or a news desk, will actually test.
Leaders’ summit. BRICS marked about 20 years since the first leaders’ meeting in 2009.
Points in the New Delhi Declaration. About 45 pages and over 18,000 words — the longest leaders’ text in a decade.
Unanimously, after overnight talks. Summit closed on 13 September. China takes the 2027 chair.
Full members on India’s official listing, plus 10 partner countries. About half the world’s people and ~40% of global GDP (PPP).
What met in Delhi
A bloc built for growth forecasts in 2001, now a political platform with members on opposite sides of a Middle East war.
Full members
- Founders (2009): Brazil, Russia, India, China. South Africa joined in 2010 (BRIC → BRICS).
- January 2024: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates.
- January 2025: Indonesia.
- Saudi Arabia: listed as a member by the Indian presidency and the BRICS site. Riyadh has not publicly confirmed accession. Treat “10 or 11” as a trap question.
Partner countries
Category created at the Kazan summit (October 2024). Partners join selected tracks; they do not adopt the declaration as members.
Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.
New Development Bank (NDB), set up in 2015 and headquartered in Shanghai, finances infrastructure and sustainable development. BRICS has no charter, no headquarters and no permanent secretariat.
Who was in the room
Confirmed heads of state or government included Vladimir Putin (his first BRICS summit outside Russia since the Ukraine war), Xi Jinping (first India visit in seven years, since Mamallapuram in 2019), Masoud Pezeshkian (Iran), Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), Prabowo Subianto (Indonesia), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt) and Abiy Ahmed (Ethiopia). Brazil and the UAE were represented at a high level rather than by their heads of state, according to reporting in The Hindu. Partner leaders, including from Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria and Vietnam, also attended. The Ministry of External Affairs said PM Modi held 15 formal bilaterals in three days, plus pull-asides.
New Delhi Declaration
Adopted on day one. The achievement was the text itself: Iran and the UAE, on opposite sides of the West Asia war, signed the same document after talks that ran to about 4 a.m.
Security and conflicts
- Zero tolerance on terrorism, including cross-border terror, financing and safe havens. Call for the UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
- Terrorism not to be linked to any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group.
- West Asia: “maximum restraint”, dialogue and diplomacy. Serious concern over attacks on civilian infrastructure and IAEA-safeguarded peaceful nuclear facilities. No country named.
- Ukraine: no separate mention in the declaration. Modi, in remarks to Putin, called for an end to the war and a ceasefire.
- Flagged rising nuclear danger; backed disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation.
Governance and trade
- Comprehensive UN reform. China and Russia, as P5 members, reiterated support for a greater UN role for India and Brazil, including in the Security Council.
- Opposition to unilateral, punitive and protectionist measures, including carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), as harmful to developing countries.
- Swipe at unilateral tariffs, without naming the United States. Linked to a demand for WTO reform and a fairer trading system.
- Local-currency trade settlement “while respecting national priorities” — explicitly not a one-size-fits-all plan, and not a common currency.
- BRICS Payment Task Force asked to keep working on fast, cheap, safe cross-border payments.
Development, minerals, climate
- Resilient, diversified critical-mineral supply chains, with benefit-sharing and value addition. PM Modi warned that weaponising critical minerals can block shared growth.
- Stronger role for the NDB and more local-currency lending, so borrowers are less exposed to foreign-exchange risk.
- Food security, climate-resilient agriculture, traditional medicine, pandemic preparedness and renewable energy.
- Responsible and inclusive AI, technology sharing, and a BRICS digital public infrastructure repository pushed by India.
Modi’s proposals
- 3Rs roadmap: Representation, Responsiveness, Rule-making. Aim: turn a “pyramid of privilege” into a “platform of partnership”.
- Continuity and Implementation Mechanism: a G20-style troika (past, current, incoming chairs) plus a secure digital repository of nodal points, deadlines and status. Proposed, not yet a standing body. BRICS still has no secretariat.
- BRICS Risk Lab at GIFT City, a new investment platform (still under discussion), a Global South skills mechanism, and a seafarer distress network.
What India gained
Delhi’s job was not to make 11 countries think alike. It was to get a declaration after the May 2026 foreign ministers’ meeting had failed.
Counter-terror language
Explicit condemnation of Pahalgam (22 April 2025, 26 dead) and of cross-border terror, safe havens and financing. Stronger than Rio.
Bridge on West Asia
Iran and the UAE both stayed inside the text. That consensus is the presidency’s main diplomatic claim.
UNSC line held
China and Russia again backed a larger role for India and Brazil. Useful, not the same as a reform timetable.
Strategic autonomy
India hosted Putin, Xi and Pezeshkian in the same week, and used the chair to speak for the Global South on tariffs, CBAM and minerals.
Process, not a secretariat
The troika idea is a low-cost answer to rotating presidencies that drop last year’s initiatives. China now has to decide whether to run with it.
Chair’s footprint
India’s presidency ran 350–400 meetings across about 30 cities before the leaders met. Theme: resilience, innovation, cooperation, sustainability.
The meetings that mattered
The declaration was multilateral. The strategic signalling was bilateral.
| Meeting | What was on the table | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Modi–Putin 11 September |
$100 billion bilateral trade target by 2030; energy, civil nuclear, fertilisers, critical minerals, rail, steel, skills and connectivity. | Second meeting in under a month, after the SCO summit in Bishkek on 31 August. Putin used the visit to warn European gas could hit $1,500 per 1,000 cubic metres. |
| Modi–Xi 12 September |
Trade, supply chains, people-to-people ties. Both sides restated that peace and tranquillity on the border is essential. Xi set out a four-point line: strategic understanding, economic cooperation, managing differences including the boundary, and multilateral coordination (BRICS, UN, SCO, G20). | Xi’s first India visit in seven years, after Galwan (2020). Third straight year of in-person Modi–Xi talks (Kazan 2024, Tianjin 2025, Delhi 2026). Photo-op with Putin included. |
| Other bilaterals | Ethiopia, Malaysia, UAE (Crown Prince), Vietnam, Kazakhstan (Tokayev), Nigeria (Shettima), Iran, and others. MEA count: 15 formal meetings in three days. | India used the summit as a Global South switchboard — trade, fertilisers, energy, defence and critical minerals — without a new alliance. |
Reuters’ read was sharper: a diplomatic win for the host, and also a stage for China. Xi proposed a BRICS AI open-source zone and a special economic zone partnership, then left with the 2027 chair.
Money, minerals, machines
Local currencies, not a BRICS rupee
Leaders encouraged settlement in national currencies and asked the Payment Task Force for practical cross-border rails. Officials said there is no common-currency proposal. Intra-BRICS trade was reported at about $417 billion in 2025–26, roughly double earlier levels.
NDB and GIFT City
More local-currency lending by the NDB was endorsed so projects are less hostage to the dollar. India floated a BRICS Risk Lab at GIFT City and talks on a new investment platform. Neither is a new bank.
AI and DPI
India pushed a digital public infrastructure repository and responsible AI. China offered to lead a BRICS AI open-source zone for large language models. Both ideas sit beside, not inside, a binding rulebook.
What the summit did not do
No common currency
No shared settlement system, no launch of “BRICS Pay”, no technical architecture. Local-currency talk is the substitute.
No Ukraine paragraph
The four-year war did not make the declaration. That silence was the price of a text Putin, and everyone else, could sign.
No names in West Asia
Concern over nuclear sites and civilian infrastructure, without naming US–Israeli strikes or Iranian retaliation. Restraint language, not a peace plan.
No new institution
The troika and digital repository were proposed. Tariffs were criticised without a remedy. Follow-up now sits with the Chinese chair.
Exam kit
Use this block for prelims recall and a 150-word mains note.
Prelims traps
- First BRICS leaders’ summit: Yekaterinburg, 2009. Term coined by Jim O’Neill, 2001.
- South Africa joined in 2010, not 2009.
- NDB: Fortaleza, 2014 decision; operational 2015; HQ Shanghai. Not the AIIB.
- 2026 host and chair: India. 2027 chair: China. Venue: Bharat Mandapam.
- Declaration adopted 12 September, not 13. Theme uses four words: resilience, innovation, cooperation, sustainability.
- Pahalgam date in the text: 22 April 2025, 26 killed.
- Partner country ≠ member. Saudi listing is disputed in public.
- No common BRICS currency was announced.
Mains angle (GS II)
“India’s BRICS chairship in 2026 showed the uses and the ceiling of minilateralism.” Points to hit: consensus despite Iran–UAE rupture; Pahalgam language as a diplomatic marker; UNSC reform line from China and Russia; local-currency payments versus de-dollarisation hype; critical minerals and CBAM as Global South trade issues; Modi–Xi stabilisation without a border settlement; troika proposal as institutional minimalism. Close on strategic autonomy: Delhi can host Moscow and Beijing without joining either camp, but an expanded BRICS still decides by the lowest common text.
One-line current affairs
On 12–13 September 2026 India hosted the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam and got all members, including Iran and the UAE, to adopt a 140-point New Delhi Declaration that condemned the Pahalgam attack, opposed unilateral tariffs and CBAMs, backed a larger UN role for India and Brazil, and stayed silent on Ukraine — before handing the chair to China for 2027.
Sources used for this page include reporting and analysis from The Hindu, Indian Express, Business Standard, Reuters, India Today, Times of India, CNBC-TV18, ORF and the Indian chair’s public account of the summit. Saudi Arabia’s membership status is listed as India and the BRICS site list it; Riyadh has not publicly confirmed accession. Figures such as intra-BRICS trade and the length of the declaration follow summit reporting and should be checked against the official PDF before quoting in an answer script.