Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: The 17th BRICS Summit, held here on Sunday, marked a pivotal moment for global cooperation as Indonesia was officially welcomed as the newest full member of the influential bloc. In a further display of its expanding reach, ten additional nations – Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Cuba, Vietnam, Uganda, and Uzbekistan – were integrated as partner countries. This significant development, articulated in the joint declaration, underscores BRICS’s commitment to strengthening multilateral ties and fostering deeper engagement with the Global South.
The summit’s joint declaration also highlighted the adoption of the BRICS Leaders’ Framework Declaration on Climate Finance and the BRICS Leaders’ Statement on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence. Furthermore, the launch of the BRICS Partnership for the Elimination of Socially Determined Diseases received endorsement, showcasing the group’s collective endeavour to devise inclusive and sustainable solutions for pressing global challenges.
During a session on ‘Peace and Security and Reform of Global Governance’, Prime Minister Modi emphasised that the expansion of BRICS and the inclusion of new partners reflected the bloc’s dynamism and its ability to adapt to changing times. He reiterated India’s call for urgent reforms in key global institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and Multilateral Development Banks. Prime Minister Modi drew a sharp analogy, stating, “In the age of AI, where technology evolves every week, it’s unacceptable for global institutions to go eighty years without reform. You can’t run 21st-century software on 20th-century typewriters.”
The BRIC grouping, initially comprising Russia, India, and China, formally took shape after their leaders’ meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006 on the sidelines of the G8 Outreach Summit. Its formalisation followed a meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers during the United Nations General Assembly in New York the same year. The inaugural BRIC Summit was hosted in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. The inclusion of South Africa in 2010, decided during the BRIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York, expanded the acronym to BRICS, with South Africa participating in the third BRICS Summit in Sanya in 2011. A further expansion occurred in 2024, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE becoming full members from January 1, 2024. Indonesia’s full membership came into effect in January 2025, alongside the induction of Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan as BRICS partner countries.
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