Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the BRICS summit in New Delhi on Sunday that rising geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions and climate crises are hitting people worldwide, while the bloc’s leaders pushed for a bigger role in the institutions that already sort winners from losers.
The gathering brought together leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the summit’s second day. Modi said the “number of conflicts and tensions in the world is continuously increasing,” and added that this is having an “increasingly negative and far-reaching impact on the lives of ordinary people.” That’s the human cost line, plain as day. The people at the bottom keep absorbing the shock while the people at the top trade statements about order.
Who Pays for the System
Modi warned that the “weaponization of technology and critical minerals” could block global development and shared prosperity. He also said, “Pandemics, climate disasters and supply-chain disruptions have shown that in today’s interconnected world, no crisis remains confined to a single region.” The language is diplomatic, but the reality underneath is blunt: ordinary people get the disruptions, while states and blocs argue over who gets to control the pipes, the minerals and the rules.
BRICS, founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, has expanded to 11 members representing about half the world’s population and a significant share of global economic output. The bloc has sought greater representation for developing countries in global institutions and promoted alternatives to Western-dominated financial systems. That’s the official pitch. The machinery of global power is still the machinery of global power, only with more seats at the table.
What They Call Reform
In its joint declaration Saturday, the bloc expressed concern over escalating tensions in the Middle East and Sudan and called for disputes to be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. It also reiterated support for a multipolar world order and reforms to the United Nations, including its Security Council, as well as global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The leaders opposed unilateral sanctions and coercive economic measures and criticized sanctions not authorized by the U.N. They also criticized rising tariffs and nontariff barriers, saying they undermine global trade and supply chains. The language lands in the familiar register of elite management: condemn the tools of domination, then keep the structure intact and ask for a better version of the same hierarchy.
Modi said the bloc agreed to establish an integrated early warning system for infectious diseases, aimed at boosting preparedness and response to future outbreaks. He urged the bloc nations to convert the summit’s agreements into tangible and time-bound action and move them from “files to real-life impact.” That phrase says plenty. The summit produces files. People live with the impact.
The Deals Behind the Curtain
The declaration backed greater use of local currencies in trade and stronger cross-border payment systems, while calling for cooperation on food security, energy, digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence and climate action. It also said the bloc would work on those issues across a group now large enough to represent about half the world’s population.
The summit’s consensus was described as a significant breakthrough because forging agreement among Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates posed a complex diplomatic challenge amid ongoing conflicts and heightened tensions. That’s the real work of these summits: not solving the crises ordinary people face, but managing rival power centers so commerce, influence and control can keep moving without too much friction.
The bloc’s expansion to 11 members gives it more weight in the global order it says it wants to reform. But the summit’s own words show the same old arrangement at work. Leaders talk about shared prosperity, while the world they govern keeps delivering supply shocks, sanctions, barriers and crises to everyone else. The people most exposed to those blows weren’t in the room deciding the terms.