External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held multiple bilateral meetings with foreign counterparts on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Foreign Ministers' Summit hosted in New Delhi. The meetings reflect India's diplomatic engagement within the expanded BRICS framework, which now includes new members admitted in 2024. The summit provided a platform for India to advance bilateral agendas alongside multilateral discussions on global governance, trade, and development finance.

BRICS — originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — is a grouping of major emerging economies that coordinates on economic governance, development finance, and global policy reform. It was formalised as a summit-level grouping in 2009 (Yekaterinburg). India has been a founding member.

The 2024 expansion was a landmark: at the Johannesburg Summit (2023), six new countries were invited — Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — effective January 2024. Argentina later declined. This makes BRICS-11 (or BRICS+) the new operating format.

The BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting is a preparatory and standalone diplomatic mechanism held ahead of or alongside Leaders' Summits. Hosting it in New Delhi signals India's active role in shaping the group's agenda even as geopolitical tensions between India and China persist within the same forum.

For UPSC aspirants, BRICS is examined from multiple angles: its founding institutions (New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai; Contingent Reserve Arrangement), membership changes, India's stance on de-dollarisation debates, and the geopolitical tensions within the bloc. The EAM's bilateral meetings on the sidelines test knowledge of India's foreign policy priorities — which counterparts India engages, and what bilateral frameworks underpin those meetings.