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BRICS Summit
Delhi's luxury hotel market is witnessing a sharp squeeze in room availability and a steep surge in tariffs ahead of the BRICS Summit, with several marquee properties either showing no rooms for key dates or quoting rates running into six figures a night. A check of hotel booking platforms for September 11-13 showed no availability at Taj Mahal and Taj Palace in New Delhi, while The Oberoi, New Delhi, was sold out for portions of the period. The Leela Palace New Delhi was not accepting bookings for the specified dates. Rooms that were available at properties such as ITC Maurya, New Delhi and Shangri-La Eros New Delhi were commanding exceptionally high tariffs, underscoring the premium being placed on accommodation in the capital around the September 12-13 Summit. The two-day geopolitical event is effectively compressing demand across several days, as delegates and other visitors arrive ahead of the Summit and extend their stays, putting additional pressure on room inventory in centr
A two-day meeting of the heads of anti-drug agencies from BRICS member countries got underway here on Monday, with India proposing the establishment of a dedicated virtual working group of the bloc to address evolving trends in narcotics trafficking. Speaking at the inauguration of the meet, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) director general Anurag Garg said the emergence of modern drug trafficking methods has turned the menace into a global threat. "Emergence of modern, highly sophisticated methods of trafficking has turned what was once a localised problem into a hyper-connected global threat," he said. Underlying the role of BRICS in addressing the challenge, Garg said, "I propose the establishment of a dedicated BRICS Virtual Working Group to systematically address these rapidly evolving trends." "This mechanism would serve as a vital platform to meet regularly, exchange real-time intelligence, analyse shifting trafficking patterns, and seamlessly coordinate joint law enforcement
A five-day meeting of the BRICS grouping will commence in Indore on Tuesday to discuss food security, smart farming, global agricultural trade and farmer welfare, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Monday. The discussions under India's presidency will include a three-day agriculture working group meeting from June 9 and a two-day BRICS ministerial meeting from June 12, he said. BRICS is an intergovernmental organisation comprising eleven major emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia. Highlighting the significance of the meeting, Chouhan said BRICS is a very strong voice of the developing countries in the world. "Around half of the world's population dwells in BRICS countries. It has 42 per cent of the global agricultural land and accounts for more than 42 per cent of the produce. Of the 58 crore farmers across the world, 70 per cent small cultivators live in BR
Sharp differences between Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the West Asia conflict were on full display on Thursday during the opening day of the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi, signalling the challenges the bloc faces in reaching a consensus position on the crisis. It is learnt that there were heated exchanges between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar during the first sessions at the meeting. As the situation appeared to deteriorate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov intervened to cool the tempers, it is learnt. In his address, Araghchi said Iran is a victim of "illegal expansionism and warmongering" and urged the BRICS nations to "explicitly condemn" what he described as violations of international law by the US and Israel. The Iranian foreign minister called upon the BRICS to resist "Western hegemony and the sense of impunity that the US believes it is entitled ...
Iran will welcome any initiative by major powers like India to bring peace to West Asia and it is developing a new service-and-payment-based framework for the passage of merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz in line with international norms, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Wednesday. Gharibabadi, currently in New Delhi, told a select group of journalists that a demand by "one member country" of the BRICS to condemn Iran has prevented the grouping from reaching a unified position on the regional conflict, an apparent reference to the United Arab Emirates. "We want India's BRICS chairship to be successful. It is not a good approach to send a signal to the world that the BRICS is divided. One country is insisting to condemn Iran," he said. "We have not attacked neighbouring countries. They handed their territories to the US to launch an attack on us. We never insisted that Arab countries should be condemned as they allowed their military bases to the .
India has presented to BRICS nations its priorities for its chairship of the grouping under the theme 'building for resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability'. New Delhi apprised the focus areas to the member nations at the first meeting of BRICS Sherpas and Sous Sherpas that was held from February 9 to 10 in the national capital. The BRICS Sherpas and senior officials from Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates participated in the meeting. BRICS, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, with Indonesia joining in 2025. It has emerged as an influential group representing around 49.5 per cent of the global population, around 40 per cent of the global GDP and around 26 per cent of the global trade. The Sherpas and other officials also jointly called on External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. "During the ..