Parliament hosts BRICS, and the Duma chairman comes first

India hosts the 12th BRICS Parliamentary Forum from 26 October, and the Speaker opened with a bilateral with Russia's State Duma chairman on terrorism, UN reform and eighty years of relations in 2027.

What happened

• The Parliament of India will host the 12th BRICS Parliamentary Forum on 26 and 27 October 2026.
• Ahead of it, the Lok Sabha Speaker held a bilateral with the Russian delegation led by Mr Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma, on cooperation at global fora and collective efforts against terrorism.
• He noted eighty years of diplomatic relations in 2027, described the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership as strengthened, and appreciated Russia's consistent support on terrorism.
• He called for regular meetings of the India-Russia Inter-Parliamentary Commission and exchanges of young and women parliamentarians, and sought Russia's participation in strengthening BRICS parliamentary cooperation under India's 2026 BRICS Presidency.
• He reiterated the need for UN Security Council reform, thanked Russia for supporting India's permanent membership, and flagged cooperation in nuclear energy, industry and cultural exchanges.

For Prelims

• The BRICS Parliamentary Forum is the legislative track of BRICS, bringing together presiding officers of member parliaments; it is separate from the leaders' summit and the sherpa process, and issues its own declaration. Samvidhan Sadan is the renamed old Parliament building, where the Central Hall hosts it.
• BRICS membership has expanded beyond Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE, with a partner-country category created at the Kazan summit (2024). The chairship rotates annually and India holds it in 2026.
• India-Russia architecture: the Declaration on Strategic Partnership (2000), upgraded to a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership (2010), with an annual summit, the 2+2 ministerial dialogue, the Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation and the Inter-Parliamentary Commission on the legislative side.
• Eighty years in 2027: diplomatic relations with the USSR were established in April 1947, before independence - which is why the anniversary falls in 2027 and why India treats the relationship as predating the Cold War alignments.
• UNSC reform vocabulary: India seeks expansion in both permanent and non-permanent categories as part of the G4 with Brazil, Germany and Japan, against the Uniting for Consensus group; of the five permanent members, four including Russia have expressed support for India's candidature, and reform requires Charter amendment ratified by two-thirds of members including all five permanent members.
• Parliamentary diplomacy uses legislatures rather than executives - the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and friendship groups - and is useful precisely because it survives changes of government.
• Why nuclear energy appears: Russia is the only foreign partner currently building reactors in India, at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu under a 1988 agreement, with further units under construction - the one area of the relationship with uninterrupted project continuity.
• The awkward subject not in the release: India's purchases of discounted Russian crude since 2022 and the resulting Western pressure, which is the live economic question in the relationship and is absent from a parliamentary readout.

For Mains

Syllabus: GS2.18 · GS2.20 · Linkage L2