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India will host the 12th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting on 21 August 2026 under its BRICS Chairship, chaired by Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Union Minister of Communications.
The meeting sits under India's overarching Chairship theme, 'Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability', and the ICT Track theme, 'Innovate, Cooperate and Transform (ICT) for a Resilient Future'.
Agenda items include emerging technologies, Digital Public Infrastructure, future networks, cybersecurity, capacity building and inclusive digital connectivity, with an explicit focus on the wider Global South.
The Department of Telecommunications has been leading discussions under the BRICS Working Group for Cooperation in ICTs, including a proposal for BRICS Capacity Building Centres.
The Minister will also visit the Digital BRICS Forum Expo; the meeting builds on the 11th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting held under Brazil's Chairship in 2025.
Plurilateral grouping of major emerging economies that coordinates positions on global governance, finance and development. The first BRIC leaders' summit was held on 16 June 2009; South Africa joined in 2011, making it BRICS. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were admitted in the 2024 expansion, and Indonesia became a full member on 6 January 2025, the first Southeast Asian country in the grouping. Sources for the 2026 Chairship list eleven full members.
BRICS-founded multilateral development bank for infrastructure and sustainable development projects. The establishing agreement was signed on 15 July 2014 at the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil. Membership has since widened beyond the founding five to include countries such as Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Uruguay.
Department under the Ministry of Communications responsible for telecom policy, licensing and spectrum. It leads India's participation in the BRICS Working Group for Cooperation in ICTs and steered the proposal for BRICS Capacity Building Centres.
DPI refers to shared, interoperable digital building blocks - typically a digital identity layer, a real-time payments layer and a consent-based data-exchange layer - that are provided as public goods on open standards, so that government and private services alike can be built on top of them rather than each building its own stack. The point is that the state supplies the rails, not the applications. India's advocacy of DPI in BRICS, the G20 and other forums rests on the argument that a country can reach population-scale digital service delivery without waiting for private platforms to arrive, and it is one of the main things India offers the Global South in technology diplomacy.
Simple Analogy: DPI is to digital services what roads, power lines and water mains are to a city: the government lays the shared network, and anyone - a bank, a hospital, a shopkeeper, a welfare department - plugs into it and runs their own service instead of digging a private road.
Position India as a front-line contributor to the design, development and deployment of 6G technology by 2030
Key: Vision document released by the Prime Minister on 23 March 2023, built on the principles of affordability, sustainability and ubiquity, and supported by two government-funded testbeds - a 6G Terahertz testbed and an advanced optical communication testbed
Bring academia, start-ups, research institutions, industry and policymakers onto one national platform for 6G development
Key: National collaborative platform under the Bharat 6G programme, intended to coordinate India's contribution to global 6G standard-setting and not only domestic deployment
Create shared BRICS facilities for digital skilling and technical capacity development in ICTs
Key: Advanced by India through the BRICS Working Group for Cooperation in ICTs during its 2026 Chairship; still a proposal under discussion at the time of the release, not an operational institution
The current statutory framework for telecom in India. It received Presidential assent on 24 December 2023 and replaced the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933; substantial provisions were brought into force on 26 June 2024 and 5 July 2024. It is the domestic legal base from which the Department of Telecommunications negotiates on spectrum, networks and cybersecurity in forums such as the BRICS ICT track.
First BRIC leaders' summit held; the grouping becomes BRICS when South Africa joins in 2011
Agreement establishing the New Development Bank signed at the 6th BRICS Summit, Fortaleza, Brazil
Bharat 6G Vision document released by the Prime Minister
The Telecommunications Act, 2023 receives Presidential assent
BRICS expansion admits Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
Indonesia becomes a full BRICS member, the first Southeast Asian country in the grouping
11th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting held under Brazil's BRICS Chairship
India hosts the BRICS ICT Track at Pune, opening with the 7th Meeting of the BRICS Working Group for Cooperation in ICTs
Digital BRICS Forum and Expo; PIB announces the ministerial for the following day
12th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting, chaired by the Union Minister of Communications
18th BRICS Summit scheduled at New Delhi, chaired by the Prime Minister
The release explicitly extends the meeting's benefit to 'the wider Global South'. This is the same positioning India used at the G20 in 2023 - offering DPI as a transferable public good - and it is the recurring thread linking India's BRICS, G20 and Voice of Global South Summit agendas.
The NDB is BRICS's institutional counterweight to the Bretton Woods system and the grouping's most concrete creation. Questions on BRICS deliverables tend to route through the NDB or the Contingent Reserve Arrangement rather than through ministerial declarations.
The Bharat 6G Vision aims at India shaping global 6G standards, which are set through the International Telecommunication Union. BRICS coordination on 'future networks' is one route by which a bloc position can be carried into those standards bodies.
Cybersecurity appears on the ministerial agenda alongside 'global digital governance', which the 11th meeting under Brazil had reaffirmed. This connects to the wider contest over whether internet governance stays multi-stakeholder or becomes more state-led, a live GS-2 theme.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > Bilateral, regional and global groupings involving India
General Awareness > Current Affairs > Summits and Conferences
General Awareness > International Organisations and Development Banks
Consider the following pairs: I. Woman Farmer : 2026 II. Sustainable Tourism : 2027 III. Peace and Trust : 2025 IV. Asteroid : 2029 How many... correctly matched?
Answer: All the four
BRICS features almost every year in UPSC Prelims and in SSC and banking general awareness, usually through membership, the NDB or the summit host.
The information and communication technologies workstream of BRICS, run through the BRICS Working Group for Cooperation in ICTs at official level and capped each year by the Communications Ministers Meeting.
Shared, interoperable digital building blocks - identity, payments, data exchange - provided as public goods on open standards for public and private services to build upon.
Collective term for developing and emerging economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America, used in Indian diplomacy to frame India as a bridge and voice for that constituency.
Multilateral development bank founded by BRICS under an agreement signed at the 2014 Fortaleza summit, headquartered at Shanghai.