Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 12th summit of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping on Tuesday. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also expected to take part in the summit.
The BRICS summit is taking place at a time when two of the bloc's members, India and China, are locked in a bitter border standoff in eastern Ladakh for over six months. Earlier, both Modi and Xi had come face-to-face virtually at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on November 10.
"At the invitation of President Putin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending the 12th BRICS Summit hosted by Russia, under the theme 'Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth' on November 17," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
The MEA said the leaders are likely to discuss issues such as intra-BRICS cooperation, measures to mitigate the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, cooperation in counter-terrorism, trade, health, energy and people-to-people exchanges.
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"India will be taking over the chair of the BRICS, which would be the third BRICS Presidency for India since its inception (after 2012 and 2016) and will host the 13th BRICS summit in 2021," the MEA said.
Countries part of the BRICS bloc represents over 3.6 billion people, or half of the world's population and have a combined GDP of USD 16.6 trillion.
