India to host BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting with key focus on global, regional issues on May 14-15

Amid the West Asia crisis, India is hosting a key BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on May 14 and 15 at Bharat Mandapam here to discuss global and regional issues of mutual interest.

This key summit holds special significance as Moscow has already confirmed its presence, announcing that “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will travel to India on May 14-15 for the meeting.”

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During his weekly media briefing in New Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal informed that External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar will chair the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting, which India will host on May 14 and 15.

“India will host the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting on 14th and 15th May 2026. The meeting will be chaired by External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar. BRICS Foreign Ministers and heads of delegations from member and partner countries will participate in the meeting. They will also call on honourable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. During the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of BRICS member countries will exchange views on global and regional issues of mutual interest,” Jaiswal stated.

“On the second day, BRICS members and partner countries will participate in a session themed ‘BRICS at 20: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.’ This will be followed by a session on the reforms of global governance and multilateral system. The BRICS Foreign Ministers held their last meeting on the margins of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 26 September 2025. The meeting was chaired by India in its capacity as the incoming chair for BRICS 2026,” he added.

The MEA spokesperson further informed that several foreign ministers from BRICS countries will participate in the key meeting. “Some of them, I think, will be arriving this afternoon. And as and when they arrive, you’ll come to know the participation… On the question of a joint statement, we will come back to you on this. We will let you know as things progress,” he stated.

On BRICS membership, Jaiswal said, “BRICS works on the basis of consensus. So, it is for the BRICS countries to decide as to what to do with membership. The expansion has happened recently; partner countries’ expansion happened in Kazan, and earlier in Johannesburg; several other countries joined the BRICS grouping. So it is something for the BRICS group to decide based on the kind of consensus that they developed among themselves.”

The MEA has also issued the schedule for the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.

According to the MEA, the visiting dignitaries will arrive at Bharat Mandapam
at 10 am on Thursday. The diplomatic proceedings will start shortly after, as the “first session of the meeting will begin at 10.30 am at the same venue (Bharat Mandapam).”

The ministers will then head to Seva Teerth at 1 pm to participate in a “Joint Call on the Prime Minister.”

The afternoon will see the delegations return to Bharat Mandapam, where the “second session of the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is scheduled for 3.10 pm.” The first day of deliberations will conclude with a dinner hosted by EAM Jaishankar at 7 pm, followed by the “third session of the meeting will commence at 10 am” on Friday, 15 May.

India holds the BRICS chair in 2026 guided by the theme of ‘Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability’, reflecting a people-centric and humanity-first approach articulated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 17th BRICS Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 2025.

BRIC was formalised at the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in 2006. The inaugural BRIC Summit was convened in Russia’s Yekaterinburg in 2009. It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York in 2010. South Africa attended the third BRICS Summit in 2011.