📌 Background & Key Features
- Expansion: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joined in 2024; Indonesia joined January 2025 — taking full membership to 10 countries, plus 11 new "partner countries" (Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda, Uzbekistan) welcomed at the 2025 Rio Summit.
- Institutions: New Development Bank (NDB, HQ Shanghai) as an alternative to the World Bank; push for local-currency trade settlement to reduce dollar dependence (short of full "de-dollarisation").
- India’s balancing act: Manages a politically heterogeneous bloc spanning US allies (UAE, Saudi Arabia—invited but yet to formally join), Russian-aligned states (Belarus), and India-China border tensions within the same table — while positioning BRICS as non-Western but not anti-Western.
📋 Quick Facts
| Founding members | Brazil, Russia, India, China (2009) + South Africa (2010) |
| 2026 India theme | ‘Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability’ — ‘Humanity First’ approach |
| Economic weight | ~45% of world population, ~35% of global GDP (expanded BRICS+) |
📊 BRICS expansion timeline and India’s 2026 Presidency
📰 Current Affairs Linkage (2025-26)
- India assumed the BRICS Presidency on 1 January 2026 (its 4th chairmanship), with PM Modi announcing India would give BRICS a "new form" at the 2025 Rio Summit; India will host the 18th BRICS Summit in 2026.
- Internal friction: At the May 2026 New Delhi Foreign Ministers’ meeting, Iran publicly accused the UAE of blocking BRICS consensus on the West Asia conflict — illustrating the challenge of unifying a politically diverse bloc.
- India’s presidency deliberately avoids replicating "WTO-style" contentious debates, focusing instead on practical cooperation (MSMEs, global value chains, services) to secure achievable consensus.
