Quick answer: The 18th BRICS Summit opens at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi on 12–13 September 2026 under India’s chairship — 11 member countries, 30-plus aspirants waiting, and an agenda built around resilience, innovation and sustainability.
- Why does this summit matter more than usual?
- Who are the members now, and who wants in?
- What is on the agenda?
- What is the de-dollarisation debate really about?
- Which leaders are in the room?
- Why did India’s chairship choose this theme?
- How does the New Development Bank fit in?
- What should India want out of its own summit?
- What could go wrong?
- Rapid facts for prelims
- Practice questions
- The closing argument
- Mains practice
- Revision card
- Sources
- About the Author
- References & authoritative sources
- Frequently asked questions
- What is the 18th BRICS Summit about, in one line?
- How many countries are BRICS members now?
- How should aspirants use this guide?
Current Affairs explainer · 12 September 2026 · IR & UPSC coverage of the BRICS Summit 2026
The news in one line: India is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi (12–13 September 2026) under its 2026 chairship — the first BRICS summit on Indian soil since 2021, with the theme “Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability.”
Why does this summit matter more than usual?
BRICS returns to New Delhi at a moment when the grouping is no longer a five-country club but a two-tier platform: 11 full members and a growing partner-country tier with more than thirty nations waiting at the door. The Delhi summit is the first chaired by India since the big expansion, so every procedural choice — who sits at the main table, who gets invited to outreach sessions, how fast the door opens — is a statement about what BRICS intends to become. For India, chairing while also managing simultaneous bilateral meetings with China, Russia, Iran and the UAE makes this the densest diplomatic week of its calendar year.
Who are the members now, and who wants in?
The original five — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — were joined in 2024 by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE, with Saudi Arabia participating from the same expansion wave and Indonesia admitted as a full member in January 2025 — Southeast Asia’s biggest economy choosing BRICS over long-debated alternatives. That makes eleven. Beyond them sits the partner-country category created at the 2024 Kazan summit, covering countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Nigeria and Vietnam. More than thirty additional states have expressed interest, and Venezuela is queued for membership while Colombia recently joined the bloc’s development bank. How the Delhi summit handles the next expansion tranche — freeze, filter or fast-track — will be watched closely in every foreign ministry in the Global South.
What is on the agenda?
- Trade and investment: intrabloc trade in local currencies, smoother settlement rails, and resilience of supply chains — the economic core of the “resilience” theme.
- Digital connectivity: India’s digital public infrastructure story — UPI, DigiLocker, account aggregators — is the showcase offering as BRICS members discuss interoperable digital payments.
- Sustainability: climate finance, green technologies and food-and-energy security, with the Global South’s financing gap as the shared grievance.
- Geopolitical flashpoints: the Iran–US confrontation and the Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine war’s economic spillovers, and the future of multilateralism itself.
- Institutional questions: expansion mechanics, the New Development Bank’s growth, and — most contested — the de-dollarisation debate.
What is the de-dollarisation debate really about?
Headlines compress it to “BRICS vs the dollar,” but the work on the table is narrower and more technical: a BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative — settlement infrastructure that lets member countries invoice and clear trade in their own currencies — plus expanded use of local-currency credit lines through the New Development Bank (NDB). Russia, cut off from Western rails, has the sharpest incentive; China wants renminbi internationalisation; India supports rupee-based trade where it is mutually beneficial but has consistently opposed any talk of a common BRICS currency. Expect the Delhi declaration to celebrate payment diversification while stopping well short of anything that sounds like an anti-dollar bloc — India’s preference, and the practical ceiling given eleven very different economies.
Which leaders are in the room?
The guest list itself is news. President Xi Jinping is in India for the first time in about seven years, with a bilateral meeting with PM Modi on the margins. President Vladimir Putin is attending and used his pre-summit message to insist BRICS is “not against anyone” while promising to scale up ties with India. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Delhi declaring Iran “will not surrender” to US–Israel pressure, and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is leading the UAE delegation on behalf of President Mohamed bin Zayed. The concentration of leaders from the neighbourhood, the Gulf, Eurasia and Latin America in one venue is precisely the convening power India wants to demonstrate.
Why did India’s chairship choose this theme?
“Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability” reads like a slogan, but each word maps to an Indian interest. Resilience — supply chains, food, energy, health — is the lesson of three years of wars and tariff shocks. Innovation is where India has the most to offer: digital public infrastructure, fintech, affordable space technology, pharma. Cooperation signals India’s preference for BRICS as a reform platform rather than a rival bloc. Sustainability keeps climate finance and just energy transitions on the agenda without letting the grouping be painted as anti-Western. India chaired the G20 in 2023 with consensus outcomes; the template it wants at BRICS is similar — maximal agreement on development, careful wording on geopolitics.
How does the New Development Bank fit in?
The NDB — founded in 2015 by the BRICS countries, headquartered in Shanghai — is the grouping’s most tangible institution, having financed infrastructure and green projects across members. The Delhi summit is expected to review its expansion beyond the founding five: new shareholders such as Bangladesh, the UAE, Uruguay and Egypt have already joined, Colombia’s recent accession takes the bank deeper into Latin America, and Venezuela is in the queue for membership. For the exam, anchor the NDB as the answer to “name a BRICS institution”: founding year 2015, HQ Shanghai, first president K.V. Kamath, regional office in Johannesburg, and a mandate for sustainable infrastructure.
What should India want out of its own summit?
Three things, plainly visible in the run-up. First, a consensus leaders’ declaration on 13 September — the harder the geopolitics, the more valuable the consensus. Second, visible movement on digital public infrastructure as a BRICS deliverable, converting India’s UPI experience into standards and pilots other members adopt. Third, managed optics: the Modi–Xi meeting advancing the India–China reset, the Putin meeting keeping energy and defence ties stable despite Western pressure, and the Iran and UAE interactions balanced so that India’s Gulf and Iranian relationships reinforce rather than contradict each other. A fourth, quieter goal: keeping BRICS from drifting into an explicitly anti-American posture that would complicate India’s simultaneous courting of Washington.
What could go wrong?
- Tariff turbulence: US threats of penalties against BRICS members pursuing de-dollarisation hang over the trade agenda; a belligerent declaration could trigger retaliation.
- The expansion question: thirty aspirants and one seat process — a messy or politicised decision would undercut the grouping’s claim to orderly growth.
- Divergent politics: India–China border talks, Russia’s war, and Iran–US tensions give every member a reason to block language someone else wants.
- Institutional overload: the NDB cannot absorb unlimited members without diluting credit quality; expansion of the bank is slower than expansion of the summit table.
Rapid facts for prelims
BRICS: coined as “BRIC” by Jim O’Neill (Goldman Sachs, 2001); first summit Yekaterinburg, 2009; South Africa joined 2010; expansion announced Johannesburg 2023, effective January 2024; Indonesia the newest full member (January 2025). The 18th summit (New Delhi, 12–13 September 2026) follows the 17th in Rio de Janeiro (2025). India previously hosted the summit in New Delhi 2012 and Goa 2016, and virtually in 2021. NDB: 2015, Shanghai; Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA): $100 billion pool. Partner countries first designated at Kazan 2024. India’s 2026 theme: “Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability.”
Practice questions
- Where is the 18th BRICS Summit being held, and under whose chairship? — Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi; India holds the 2026 chairship.
- How many full members does BRICS have in 2026, and who joined most recently? — Eleven; Indonesia (January 2025) is the newest.
- Which institution is BRICS’s development bank, and where is it headquartered? — The New Development Bank (2015), headquartered in Shanghai.
- Which two categories of participation exist beyond full membership? — Partner countries (created at Kazan 2024) and invited/outreach guests.
- What is the essential difference between payment diversification and de-dollarisation? — Settling trade in local currencies (operational) versus displacing the dollar as a global reserve asset (political and far harder).
The closing argument
For the Mains answer, frame BRICS 2026 as a test of whether an expanded, heterogenous grouping can deliver institutions rather than just statements. India’s chairship bet is that the future of the Global South’s diplomacy is “coalitions that build things” — payment rails, development banks, digital standards — not rival military or ideological blocs. If Delhi ends with consensus plus concrete deliverables, BRICS will have proved it can grow without dissolving; if the declaration fractures over geopolitics, the grouping’s ceiling will look a lot lower. Either way, the exam-ready takeaway is the same: watch what is built, not only what is said.
Mains practice
- “BRICS expansion reflects the redistribution of global economic weight, but its cohesion will decide its relevance.” Discuss with reference to the 18th BRICS Summit. (GS-2)
- “Digital public infrastructure can be India’s most exportable diplomacy.” Evaluate in the context of BRICS cooperation. (GS-2/GS-3)
Revision card
- 18th BRICS Summit: Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, 12–13 September 2026; India chairship.
- Theme: Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability.
- Members (11): BR5 + Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia.
- NDB: 2015, Shanghai; Colombia joined 2026; Venezuela queued.
- Key debates: expansion mechanics, local-currency payments, no common currency (India’s line).
Sources
- The Hindu — world leaders attending, India’s role and agenda
- Anadolu Agency — factbox: who’s attending and what’s on the agenda
- Times of India — agenda amid global tensions
References & authoritative sources
Source: compiled from official notifications, standard textbooks and our own mock-test analytics; last reviewed September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 18th BRICS Summit about, in one line?
The 18th BRICS Summit (12–13 September 2026, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi) gathers the eleven BRICS member countries under India’s chairship to agree on trade, digital, sustainability and geopolitical cooperation.
How many countries are BRICS members now?
Eleven full members — the original five plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia — plus a partner-country tier and thirty-plus aspirant states.
How should aspirants use this guide?
Read the explainer once, revise from the revision card, then attempt the practice questions — the same three-pass method our mentors use in class.
Quick revision
- Trade and investment: intrabloc trade in local currencies, smoother settlement rails, and resilience of supply chains — the economic core of the “resilience”…
- Digital connectivity: India’s digital public infrastructure story — UPI, DigiLocker, account aggregators — is the showcase offering as BRICS members discuss…
- Sustainability: climate finance, green technologies and food-and-energy security, with the Global South’s financing gap as the shared grievance.
- Geopolitical flashpoints: the Iran–US confrontation and the Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine war’s economic spillovers, and the future of multilateralism itself.
- Institutional questions: expansion mechanics, the New Development Bank’s growth, and — most contested — the de-dollarisation debate.
- Tariff turbulence: US threats of penalties against BRICS members pursuing de-dollarisation hang over the trade agenda; a belligerent declaration could trigger retaliation.
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