The stage is set for India to host the 18th BRICS Summit in the national capital this weekend.
The high-profile gathering, scheduled for September 12–13, 2026, at , will bring together leaders of BRICS member and partner countries, along with outreach invitees.
India is the BRICS Chair for the 2026 edition. The BRICS Chairship is guided by the theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attendance has been confirmed. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to attend too. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Indonesian President . Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meetings with Putin and Pezeshkian on Friday have been confirmed by officials.
There will be representatives from other major economies too.
What is BRICS, how did it started and how has it expanded over the years, Mint Explains.
How did it start?
British economist Jim O’Neill coined the original term BRIC in 2001. He came up with the term ‘BRIC’ while working as the chief economist at Goldman Sachs in a research paper titled “.”
“Over the next 10 years, the weight of the BRICs, especially China, in world GDP will grow, raising important issues about the global economic impact of fiscal and monetary policy in the BRICs. In line with these prospects, world policymaking forums should be reorganised, and in particular, the G7 should be adjusted to incorporate BRIC representatives,” read the paper.
BRICS was formed in 2006 as an informal comprising four countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The first Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the BRICS nations was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2006. The inaugural summit was in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009.
So, India is a founding member of BRICS. It has previously held its Chairmanship three times: in 2012, 2016, and 2021.
India assumed the present and its fourth BRICS Chairship on 1 January 2026. The year 2026 also marks a significant milestone as BRICS completes twenty years since its establishment.
How did it expand?
Ever since its inception twenty years ago, BRICS has undergone a transformative expansion. The formal BRICS expansion became effective on 1 January 2024.
Today, BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries worldwide: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the .
The bloc serves as a useful platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues of global and regional significance while commanding significant global.
The 2024 expansion came with a range of geopolitical implications representing growing economic and demographic heft: the eleven BRICS countries now comprise more than a quarter of the global economy and almost half of the world’s population, according to (CFR), an independent think tank.
A BRICS overview published by puts the expanded grouping at about 49% of the world’s population, 39% of global GDP and 23% of international trade.
“The group is poised to exert influence over the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, the shape of the global economic system, the competition between China and the West, and efforts to transition to clean energy,” writes Zongyuan Zoe Liu, CFR Expert and Maurice R Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies.
Few acronyms have undergone as dramatic an evolution as the BRICS, according to commentator Dr Brahma Chellaney. The “BRICs” grouping has developed into the BRICS, an 11-country political and economic coalition and an increasingly influential voice for the Global South, wrote recently in Project Syndicate, an international nonprofit media organisation that publishes and syndicates original opinions and columns.
By contrast, the G7 accounts for less than 10% of the global population and less than 30% of world GDP. “And whereas the BRICS’ share of the global economy continues to grow, the pace of productivity and economic growth in advanced economies has been declining steadily since the 1990s,” Dr Chellaney wrote.
Why does BRICS matter?
BRICS is not a formal organisation, yet it i sa loose bloc of non-Western economies that coordinate economic and diplomatic efforts around a shared goal, according to CFR experts.
BRICS countries seek to build an alternative to what they see as the dominance of the Western viewpoint in major such as the World Bank, the Group of Seven (G7), and the UN Security Council, CFR says.
Growing membership also brings new challenges, however, including increasing pushback from Western countries and divisions within the bloc. Experts say that how BRICS members navigate those tensions will determine whether the group can become a more unified voice on the global stage, the experts say.
India’s Role as BRICS Chair
During India’s 2026 BRICS chairship, New Delhi has pushed for greater and more balanced trade among members, stronger trade in services, resilient global value chains and easier access to finance for small businesses.
For India, the challenge would be to strike a balancing act because the expanded BRICS includes both Iran and the UAE, which have opposing interests in the ongoing . At the same time. New Delhi also has important strategic and economic relationships with Washington and Gulf countries.
And the stakes are not merely diplomatic. The US-Iran war has affected energy security, shipping, and global oil markets, with the Strait of Hormuz emerging as a major vulnerability.
(With agency inputs)