Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday host the 13th summit of the BRICS bloc which, besides India, comprises Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa. Just like last year’s event, the current edition, too, will take place virtually due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, making it the second straight BRICS meeting to be held via videoconferencing.
Narendra Modi has chaired the 13th BRICS Summit, through video conferencing. The theme of the India-led Summit was “BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation, and Consensus.” The theme chosen by India reflects the fifteenth anniversary of BRICS, being observed in 2021. PM Modi called for enhanced BRICS cooperation under the motto of ‘Build-back Resiliently, Innovatively, Credibly and sustainably’.
The Summit concluded with the adoption of the ‘New Delhi Declaration. This was the third time that India hosted the BRICS Summit. Prior to this India held the Presidency of the BRICS in 2012 and 2016. Also, this is the second time that Prime Minister Modi has chaired the BRICS Summit. He had previously chaired the Goa Summit in 2016.
Apart from this, as the President of BRICS in 2021, India has highlighted four priority areas for this year’s BRICS Summit, which were:
- reform of the multilateral system,
- counter-terrorism cooperation,
- using digital and technological tools to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG),
- enhancing people-to-people exchanges
All BRICS Leaders took part virtually in the Summit, including Brazil President-Jair Bolsonaro, Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping of China, and President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. BRICS is an association of five major emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.