India set to chair 13th BRICS Summit with focus on security

The 13th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit will be held under India's presidency in 2021.

It will be the third time that India will be hosting the BRICS Summit after 2012 and 2016. As BRICS celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, the theme for India as Chair is 'BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus'.

According to an Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement, India will work on specific deliverables across all three pillars of intra-BRICS cooperation in 2021, which are Political and Security, Economic and Financial, and Cultural and People to People.

The 2020 BRICS summit was held virtually amid the Covid pandemic under the chair-ship of Russia. The summit, which took place in November last year, was the first time that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping were on the same platform since an episode of border skirmishes.

Earlier, the 11th BRICS Trade Ministers Meeting saw new areas of cooperation gaining traction on Trade in Professional Services, Genetic Resources and Consumer Protection under e-commerce.

India also welcomed Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Uruguay as new members of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB).

India at the BRICS Digital Health Summit discussed challenges and opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The energy ministers of BRICS nations also met under the presidency of India and vowed to increase the efficiency of the energy sector.

(ANI)