PM Modi Attends 17th BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the 17th BRICS Summit Meeting being held in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on 6 and 7th July 2025. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva hosted the Summit Meeting. Brazil handed over the Chair of BRICS to India at the end of the Summit, and India will host the 18th BRICS Summit Meeting in 2026.

Theme of the 17th BRICS Summit Meeting 2025 

Theme of the 17th Summit Meeting was -  "Strengthening Global South Cooperation for a More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance”.

Who attended the Summit Meeting?

The Summit meeting was attended by the leaders of all 11 BRICS member countries -Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.

Indonesia attended the BRICS Summit Meeting for the first time, having joined the Group in January 2025.

The Summit was also attended by 10 BRICS partner countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Vietnam, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.  

Absence of the Chinese and the Russian President 

The leaders of the two founding members of BRICS, Russia and China, were absent from the summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Since coming to power in 2012, Chinese President XI Jinping has, for the first time, missed the BRICS summit meeting. Instead, China sent its Premier Li Qiang to Brazil. The Chinese gave no reason for President Xi’s absence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also did not attend the meeting as a warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against him, accusing him of crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

 Brazil is a signatory to the ICC, and if Putin goes to Brazil, then the Brazilian government is duty-bound to arrest him.

For this reason, President Putin attended the Summit Meeting virtually.

 Rio Declaration Condemns Palagam Terror Incident

At the end of the Summit Meeting, a declaration was issued by the BRICS countries.

They condemned, in the strongest terms, the Phalagam terror incident in Kashmir on 22 April 2025, in which terrorists killed 26 tourists. The declaration called upon the world community to ensure zero tolerance for terrorism and rejected double standards in countering terrorism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to the BRICS session on ‘Peace and Security’, had raised the issue of terrorism.

It also condemned unilateral sanctions imposed by countries on other countries in a veiled reference to the United States.

About BRICS 

BRIC was a term coined by Jim O'Neill, Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs, an American multinational investment bank. He identified Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as the most promising economies of the future.

For the first time, the BRIC foreign ministers met in New York, the United States, in 2006.

The First Summit Meeting of the leaders was held in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in 2009.

Following the joining of South Africa at the Sanya Summit in China in 2011, the group's name was changed to BRICS.

In 2024, five more countries joined BRICS: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia.

Indonesia joined in 2025 to make the total member countries eleven

BRICS Secretariat - BRICS does not have a permanent secretariat or headquarters.