Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: New Delhi hosts the BRICS foreign ministers’ summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls on citizens to take austerity measures amid fuel shortages, and Pakistan’s interior minister makes an important trip to Bangladesh.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: New Delhi hosts the BRICS foreign ministers’ summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls on citizens to take austerity measures amid fuel shortages, and Pakistan’s interior minister makes an important trip to Bangladesh.

New Delhi Hosts BRICS Foreign Ministers

As U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing this week, another summit is taking place in New Delhi: the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting, held on Thursday and Friday.

As this year’s BRICS chair, India accords great strategic importance to the group, which has gained momentum in recent years. New Delhi will also host the annual leaders’ meeting in September.

However, the bloc’s expanded membership—it now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to original members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—along with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East could make New Delhi’s job this week difficult.

New Delhi has long stood by BRICS, despite frequent criticism that the group is just a talk shop. The group enables India to balance its ties with the West and those with key players beyond it. Aside from Iran, every new member is a close partner of India, and BRICS priorities tend to align with Indian ones.

Past BRICS summits have emphasized goals and principles that are important to New Delhi, including engaging with the global south, advocating for United Nations reform, and even pushing for mechanisms to circumvent Western sanctions.

India’s embrace of BRICS has been vindicated as growing discontent with the U.S.- and Western-led global order has attracted more countries to join. The 2024 BRICS leaders’ summit in Russia, for example, featured representatives from 35 countries and several international organizations, including the U.N. secretary-general.

The membership expansion in 2024-25—the first since South Africa joined BRICS in 2010—also reflects the group’s growing cachet. Trump’s threats to impose 100 percent tariffs on the........

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