PIB TrackerChandigarh agreed the terms of reference in July; Delhi welcomed a proposal
The New Delhi Declaration welcomes a BRICS expert working group on traditional medicine. Its terms of reference were settled two months earlier, at a meeting in Chandigarh on 21 July 2026.
What happened
- The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit welcomes the proposed establishment of a BRICS Expert Working Group on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine under the BRICS Health Track.
- Consensus on the group's Terms of Reference was reached earlier, at the BRICS Meeting on TCIM held in Chandigarh on 21 July 2026 under India's BRICS Chairship.
- The release refers to the group seven times and calls it proposed on every one of them; it is described as envisaged as a platform, never as established.
- The Declaration calls for cooperation in research on medicinal plants and herbal preparations and treats the shared traditional pharmacopoeias of Member Countries as a foundation for therapeutic products.
- Quality, safety and efficacy are to be pursued through evidence-informed approaches and regulatory frameworks in accordance with the national contexts of Member States.
For Prelims
- TCIM: Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine, the subject of the expert working group welcomed in the New Delhi Declaration at the 18th BRICS Summit.
- BRICS Health Track: the workstream under which the proposed TCIM Expert Working Group would sit, as recorded in the New Delhi Declaration.
- Terms of Reference: agreed by consensus at the BRICS Meeting on TCIM in Chandigarh on 21 July 2026, under India's BRICS Chairship.
- Status of the group: the release calls it proposed at all seven mentions and never states that it has been established.
- Regulatory basis: quality, safety and efficacy rest on evidence-informed approaches and regulatory frameworks in accordance with the national contexts of Member States.
- WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025-2034: cited as the international backdrop; the release assigns the WHO no role in the proposed working group.
- Research focus named: medicinal plants and herbal preparations used for therapeutic and preventive purposes, and the shared traditional pharmacopoeias of Member Countries.
- Ayush voices: Minister of State (Independent Charge) Prataprao Jadhav and Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, who link TCIM cooperation to Universal Health Coverage.
For UPSC: This is the clean example of how plurilateral machinery is actually made: a sectoral meeting agrees terms of reference, and the leaders' text supplies a welcome. Use it on groupings and their institutional architecture, on what a chairship buys a host country in agenda terms, and on why health cooperation language about evidence and standards usually leaves regulation with national authorities.
What it is NOT: The release does not say the Expert Working Group has been constituted, and it names no chair, no secretariat, no member count, no first meeting and no date by which it must be stood up. It does not publish the Terms of Reference, and it announces no global standard - regulation stays with Member States' own frameworks.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS2.18 · GS3.13 · Linkage L2
Anchor
The one summit outcome on traditional medicine that reads as concrete turns out to be a welcome rather than a decision. The New Delhi Declaration welcomes the proposed establishment of a BRICS Expert Working Group on TCIM, while the only document that exists, its Terms of Reference, was agreed two months earlier at a technical meeting in Chandigarh.
Substantiation (data)
The release names the group seven times and calls it proposed on all seven, and never says it has been established. Its Terms of Reference were settled by consensus at the BRICS Meeting on TCIM in Chandigarh on 21 July 2026, under India's Chairship, attended by senior government officials, technical experts and delegates from Member States.
Comparison
Set the two venues against each other. Chandigarh, a sectoral meeting with no leaders present, produced an agreed text with a name and a date attached to it. New Delhi, with heads of state and government in the room, produced a paragraph of welcome. The working level supplied the instrument; the summit supplied the endorsement.
Problematisation
Terms of reference agreed by consensus are not a constituted body. The release gives no chair, no secretariat, no member count, no first meeting and no date by which the group must be stood up, and it does not publish the Terms of Reference themselves. Until one of those appears there is no output against which the mechanism can be audited.
Counterpoint
The clause that limits the whole thing is the carve-out. Quality, safety and efficacy are to be secured through regulatory frameworks in accordance with the national contexts of Member States, and pharmacopoeial standards appear only as a subject on which countries may exchange experience. Evidence-based cooperation here means comparison across regulators, not convergence between them.
Position
What India's Chairship has bought is agenda-setting rather than rule-making. Ayurveda and the wider Ayush systems now have a named slot in the BRICS Health Track, a July text to build on and a WHO strategy to cite. That is worth holding, and it is a different thing from a common standard for traditional medicine, which no member has undertaken to accept.
Deploys into: Groupings and agreements (GS2.18, GS3.13) · how plurilateral machinery is created: a technical meeting agrees terms of reference, the summit supplies the welcome · what a chairship buys the host in agenda terms · why health cooperation texts leave regulation with national authorities · evidence, quality and safety in traditional medicine
AYUSH · 2026-09-13 · PRID 2309695 · PIB source ↗