Text of Prime Minister's opening address during the 18th BRICS Summit session: "Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability: Shaping the Future for Inclusive Global Development"
As chair of BRICS for 2026, India convened over 400 meetings and engagements across 30 Indian cities through the chairship year, culminating in the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi.
The summit's plenary opening session was framed around four pillars — Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability — used to structure new sectoral initiatives launched during the chairship.
New mechanisms unveiled include a BRICS Integrated Early Warning System (disaster management and infectious disease response), a BRICS Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework, a BRICS Incubator Network and Startup Innovation Fund, a BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture, a BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal, a BRICS Urban Mobility Hub, and a BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for clean-energy systems.
The session also flagged concerns around the "weaponization" of critical minerals and technology access, and called for inclusive, adaptable technology adoption across the grouping.
BRICS Chairship Rotation and the Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa Process
The BRICS chairship rotates annually among member states, and the chair country hosts the year's culminating leaders' summit after a year-long calendar of ministerial, official-level (Sherpa/Sous-Sherpa), and track-II engagements. India previously chaired BRICS in 2016 (Goa Summit) and 2021 (virtual, under the theme "Continuity, Consolidation, Consensus"); 2026 is India's first chairship since the bloc's 2024–25 membership expansion.
Key Details
- The Sherpa Track handles foreign-policy and cross-cutting coordination; the Finance Track (finance ministers and central bank governors) runs in parallel.
- The scale of India's 2026 chairship — 400+ engagements across 30 cities — reflects the "outreach" model also used during India's G20 2023 presidency (60+ cities).
- Comparison: chairship rotates alphabetically by country name among BRICS members, unlike the G20's negotiated annual handover.
The opening address's four-pillar framing (Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, Sustainability) is the organising theme India set for its chairship-year deliverables, mirrored in the sectoral initiatives announced at the summit.
Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR)
PartNIR was established at the 2018 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg to promote cooperation on Industry 4.0 technologies, digital economy integration, and skills development among member states.
Key Details
- PartNIR created a framework for joint working groups on manufacturing digitalisation, e-commerce, and innovation cooperation.
- It predates and provides the institutional basis for newer initiatives such as the BRICS Incubator Network and Startup Innovation Fund.
- Comparable frameworks: G20's Digital Economy Working Group; India's own Startup India (launched 2016) as the domestic policy analogue.
The startup and innovation mechanisms announced at this summit extend PartNIR's 2018 mandate into concrete funding and incubation vehicles under India's 2026 chairship.
Critical Minerals Security and Technology Sovereignty
Critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and similar inputs essential to clean-energy and defence technologies — have become a strategic concern globally after supply concentration in a few countries enabled export-control leverage in 2025.
Key Details
- India launched the National Critical Mineral Mission in 2024 to secure domestic exploration, processing, and overseas asset acquisition for critical minerals.
- Comparable multilateral initiatives include the Minerals Security Partnership (a Western-led grouping) — a useful contrast to BRICS's own framing on avoiding "weaponization" of minerals and technology.
- Rare-earth processing remains heavily concentrated, which is the structural reason critical-minerals security featured prominently in the summit's technology discussions.
The opening address's caution against weaponizing critical minerals and technology access reflects the same global supply-concentration concerns that motivated India's National Critical Mineral Mission.
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Diplomacy
Digital Public Infrastructure refers to interoperable, population-scale digital systems — identity (Aadhaar), payments (UPI), and data-exchange layers — that India has promoted internationally as a replicable model for other developing economies.
Key Details
- India's DPI diplomacy was formalised multilaterally through the G20's "One Future Alliance" and DPI repository during India's 2023 G20 presidency.
- UPI has been extended to several countries through bilateral payment-linkage agreements (e.g., Singapore, UAE, Sri Lanka).
- The BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal and Digital Agriculture Network extend this DPI-diplomacy approach into the BRICS grouping's sectoral cooperation.
The digital-first initiatives announced at the summit (MSME portal, digital agriculture network, AI and geospatial technology cooperation) situate BRICS as a second major multilateral platform, after the G20, through which India is exporting its DPI model.
- India's 2026 BRICS chairship: 400+ meetings and engagements across 30 Indian cities
- Four-pillar theme: Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, Sustainability (RICS)
- PartNIR established: 2018, Johannesburg Summit
- India's prior BRICS chairships: 2016 (Goa Summit), 2021 (virtual)
- National Critical Mineral Mission launched: 2024
- New Development Bank founding capital (context for financial-cooperation initiatives): USD 100 billion, 2014