India & Iran: BRICS cooperation in energy, trade & rupee-rial
India’s new Ambassador to Tehran Vishwesh Negi, in an interview with Iran Daily, outlined India’s BRICS 2026 chairship priorities: resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability. He emphasized integrating new members, promoting local-currency trade (including Rupee-Rial with Iran), and delivering practical outcomes in energy, agriculture, technology, and supply chains.
IRAN DAILY: India has assumed the rotating chairmanship of BRICS at a time when the group, following its membership expansion, has entered a new phase of development. What are India’s main priorities and agenda for its chairmanship, and how does New Delhi view the future of BRICS? Does it see the group primarily as an economic mechanism, or as a platform for shaping new political and geopolitical arrangements during the transition in the international system?
NEGI: As part of India’s chairship of BRICS 2026, India has listed its priorities around four thematic pillars which are Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, drawing inspiration from the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of “Humanity First” and reflects a people-centric approach, essentially covering areas ranging from health, agriculture, food and energy security to technology, AI, trade, multilateralism, climate action and sustainable development.
Under India’s chairship, the two principal objectives are to consolidate the achievements of previous chairships while facilitating the seamless integration of the expanded membership, and to translate our priorities into practical, outcome oriented and enduring cooperation.
BRICS is an important platform for emerging and developing economies, and India sees its future as an inclusive, action-oriented and future-ready platform responsive to the priorities of the Global South.
One of the key questions in recent years regarding the role of BRICS has been how to manage the diverse interests and perspectives of its new and longstanding members. With the group’s expansion, concerns have arisen that the growing number of members could make decision-making and consensus-building more difficult. What approach does India propose to maintain BRICS’ cohesion and effectiveness in this new phase, and what reforms does it consider necessary to the group’s structure and decision-making mechanisms?
India believes that, its chairship of the BRICS, presents an excellent opportunity and key responsibility in taking forward the BRICS agenda and diversifying areas of cooperation. India’s approach has been to facilitate the seamless integration of new members and Partner Countries, while maintaining the effectiveness of existing mechanisms and building consensus.
As you are aware, India strongly supported Iran’s membership in BRICS as we believe that Iran can play a vital role in this grouping.
Our experience so far demonstrates that this approach is working. During our present chairship, more than 300 of over 400 planned meetings across 35 Ministerial and Heads-of-Agencies tracks have already been held, with active participation from Members and Partner Countries.
I am happy to inform that as a consequence of the several Ministerial, plus Agency level meetings held under our chairship till now, we have witnessed the successful launch of the following initiatives, namely AgriN (Agro Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network) and a Network of Centres of Excellence on Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture, BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage, launch of BRICS CONNECT, BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyle, establishment of the BRICS Expert Working Group on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCIM), BRICS Voluntary Principles for Climate-Resilient Urban Infrastructure, signing of MoU by BRICS countries on Cooperation in the Field of Standardization and the adoption of the BRICS Logistics Supply-Chain Cooperation Framework. India’s chairship has also witnessed the adoption of the first-ever Ministerial Declaration under the Urbanisation Track.
Page 3