Congress recalls BRICS history ahead of summit; Jairam Ramesh highlights Manmohan Singh’s role

Source: Punjab Kesari | Original Published At: 2026-09-10 10:48:06 UTC

Key Points

• Congress said India first hosted a BRICS summit in New Delhi on 29 March 2012, during which former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed creating a BRICS development bank.
• Jairam Ramesh said the grouping's origins trace to a September 2006 meeting of four foreign ministers at the United Nations in New York, largely on the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The first BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009, and South Africa joined in September 2010, turning BRIC into BRICS.
• Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined BRICS in 2024, while Indonesia joined a year later.
• The New Development Bank was established in July 2014, headquartered in Shanghai, with banker K.V. Kamath as its first president.
• According to Ramesh, India has borrowed about USD 10 billion from the New Development Bank for development projects in various states.
• The upcoming two-day BRICS summit in New Delhi is expected to be attended by leaders including China's Xi Jinping, Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian, Russia's Vladimir Putin, South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa and Indonesia's Prabowo Subianto.