EVENTS

The 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi has taken place at a consequential moment for the grouping. An expanded BRICS seeks a greater role in shaping global governance even as multilateralism confronts geopolitical contestation, economic fragmentation, and mounting developmental challenges. The New Delhi Summit, therefore, provided an important setting for examining what BRICS represents for the Global South and how effectively it can translate its growing weight and diversity into collective agency. Against this backdrop, the panel brings together three complementary perspectives on BRICS, multilateralism and global governance. It examines the evolving relationship between BRICS and the Global South, including the opportunities and tensions arising from the grouping’s expansion and growing ambitions. It also considers how India and China pursue distinct yet overlapping institutional pathways to Global South leadership. India places greater emphasis on representational legitimacy, coalition-building and negotiated consensus, while China combines institutional engagement with greater material capabilities, development finance and economic connectivity. The impending transfer of the BRICS Chair from India to China’s in 2027 offers an important context for assessing these different approaches. Finally, the panel examines the interconnections among trade, energy security and climate change, particularly the challenge of reconciling cleaner energy transitions with energy access, competitiveness and inclusive development. Together, the three perspectives ask what the evolving BRICS can contribute to Global South agency and the reshaping of multilateral global governance.

Speaker

G. Venkat Raman a Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences area at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and a Fulbright Fellow (2023–24) at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. He completed his PhD from the School of Government, Peking University. He is a recipient of the Nehru Memorial fellowship and has been a postdoctoral fellow in Fudan University, Shanghai. Venkat has co-edited “Locating BRICS in the Global Order” (Routledge, 2022) and contributes commentaries on China, geopolitics, and international business to leading platforms.

Meeta Keswani Mehra is Professor of Economics at the Centre for the Study of the World Economy, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre, and has been a member of the JNU faculty since 2004. She has served as an Expert Reviewer for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. She was awarded the Rockefeller Bellagio Academic Residency in 2013 and in 2023, she was awarded the Senior Scholar Mobility Grant. Her research has been published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and books.

Rajan Kumar is Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where he has been teaching and researching since 2006. His notable publications include the co-edited volume Locating BRICS in the Global Order: Perspectives from the South (Routledge, 2022) and the co-authored book Re-emerging Russia: Structures, Institutions and Processes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). His research has appeared in journals including The Round Table, China Report, India Report and International Studies.

About the Chair

Alka Acharya is currently the Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. She was previously Professor and Chairperson at the Centre for East Asian Studies (Chinese Studies), SIS JNU. Her current research focuses on India-China-Russia Trilateral Cooperation and comparing the Indian and Chinese strategies of regional engagement.

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