GLOBAL SOUTH IN FOCUS, PM MODI HEADS FOR BRICS SUMMIT

The overarching agenda of India at the BRICS Summit in Russia's Kazan will be to manage the expansion of the grouping in a manner conducive to the interests of the Global South.

- MANISH CHAND

With the future of BRICS emerging as an arena of contest and power play, Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to the Russian city of Kazan to participate in the 16th summit of the plurilateral grouping, which is expected to add at least 10 countries as partners in the expanded BRICS.

It is fitting that BRICS 2.0 will be consolidated in Russia, which hosted the first summit of the grouping in Yekaterinburg in 2009. Besides the existing members, the expanded BRICS+ will comprise diverse countries, cutting across geographies and continents.

The addition of more countries as "partner countries" will top the agenda of the largest summit of BRICS, which Russian President Vladimir Putin will host in the capital of Tatarstan on October 22-24. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join around 40 other prominent leaders to participate in regular and Outreach/BRICS Plus sessions.

The 16th BRICS Summit will take place against the backdrop of an unprecedented churn in the world order. Crises and conflicts are proliferating, and geopolitical fault lines are deepening. In this age of poly-crisis and paranoia, trust deficit is growing amid competitive games for power and domination. It's also a time of structural changes in the international system and multilateralism the old order is crumbling, but the outlines of an emerging world order are only dimly visible.