PM Modi flags weaponisation of technology and critical minerals

Why in the News

Closing the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the Prime Minister warned that the weaponisation of technology and of access to critical minerals can hinder the grouping’s shared progress, and set against it a commitment to inclusivity in the adoption of technology. The summit ran under the theme “Resilience, cooperation and sustainability” and issued the New Delhi Declaration, and India used its chair position to launch a set of standing mechanisms covering disease surveillance, disaster data, logistics, startup finance, small enterprise linkage and clean energy. The stated framing was that as BRICS enters its third decade the world expects concrete results from it rather than “merely ideas and commitments”. The tension inside the summit is that the members diagnosing the same problem, an order that disadvantages them, arrived with different remedies, from India’s delivery mechanisms to Russia’s sanctions workarounds and China’s call to rally the Global South.

What did India’s chair position argue?

1. Weaponisation of technology and critical minerals: Technology and access to critical minerals can both be used as instruments of pressure, and that use obstructs the development of the grouping’s members.
2. Inclusivity in technology adoption: Inclusivity in the adoption of technology was placed as the answer, meaning access on terms that do not depend on the supplier’s political posture.
3. Rising number of global conflicts: The rising number of global conflicts has an increasingly negative and far reaching effect on the lives of ordinary people.
4. Resilience as the organising idea: Pandemics, climate disasters and supply chain disruptions have all shown that no crisis stays confined to one region, so the work was framed around identifying challenges in time, being prepared and acting promptly.
5. The delivery test for the third decade: Entering its third decade, BRICS is expected to produce concrete results rather than ideas and commitments.

What new BRICS mechanisms were announced?

1. BRICS Integrated Early Warning System: Agreed for the prevention of and response to infectious diseases.
2. Early Warning Data Integration Guidelines: Prepared for disaster management across member states.
3. BRICS Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework: Intended to make member supply chains more reliable and resilient.
4. BRICS Incubator Network and BRICS Startup Innovation Fund: The network connects startups and incubators across member states, and the fund has been proposed to back innovative and scalable solutions.
5. BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture: Connects artificial intelligence, geospatial technology and Digital Public Infrastructure, meaning shared open digital platforms for identity, payments and data exchange, to the working needs of farmers.
6. BRICS CONNECT: Aimed at skills, employability, women in the workforce, social security and capacity building.
7. BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal: Set up to link small enterprises to knowledge, finance and new markets.
8. BRICS Urban Mobility Hub: Established to share urban transport practices between member cities.
9. BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence: Established for smart grids and energy storage under the sustainability pillar of India’s strategy for the grouping.
10. Agriculture and climate centres: Centres of Excellence for Agro Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture were set up, alongside agreed principles for community based climate adaptation that treat indigenous knowledge as a foundation for climate action.

What did the other members put on the table?

1. China called for rallying the Global South: The Chinese President urged BRICS to rally the Global South so that an increasingly volatile international order is “free from double standards”, and stated that the logic of might makes right does not hold.
2. The norms China named: Global South countries were asked to defend sovereign equality, non interference in internal affairs and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and to insist that international law applies to all.
3. China’s five technology initiatives: An artificial intelligence open source community, an open ecosystem for artificial intelligence, a special economic zone partnership, a digital ecosystem cloud platform, and science and technology talent development.
4. Russia proposed two instruments against sanctions: The Russian President proposed a BRICS insurance mechanism and a collaborative BRICS grain market, and noted the grouping has independent routes for moving capital, labour and technologies.
5. The Western insurance bar on Russian crude: The G7, the European Union and the United Kingdom barred Western companies from insuring any ship carrying Russian crude unless the oil was bought at or below a specified price cap, which directly restricted Russian crude exports.
6. The New Development Bank was cited as the working asset: The multilateral development bank established by BRICS is handling projects worth $140 billion.
7. Iran pressed for national currency trade: The Iranian President argued that excessive dependence on existing financial and trade systems leaves emerging economies exposed to political shocks, backed expanded trade in national currencies and a strengthened New Development Bank, and said unilateral sanctions directly affect global food security.

What did the New Delhi Declaration record?

1. Historical racial injustice: The declaration took note of the racial injustice Africans have suffered historically.
2. A new inequality instrument: It noted the Brazilian and South African plan to start an “international panel on inequality”.
3. The historical frame invoked: It referred to decolonisation and to Asian African solidarity as displayed at the Bandung conference of 1955.
4. The Gaza proceedings: It named the South Africa initiated legal process at the International Court of Justice against Israel over its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, recording that those proceedings reaffirmed Israel’s legal obligation to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Challenges to BRICS as a delivery platform

1. Announced mechanisms have no compliance machinery behind them: A framework, a portal or a network created by summit declaration binds no member and carries no penalty for non participation. Eg. Eleven separate initiatives were announced in one closing session, none attached to a dated implementation milestone.
   The Fix: Attach each mechanism to a named lead member, a secretariat line and an annual reporting obligation to the next summit, so progress is recorded rather than assumed.
2. The membership no longer shares an economic interest: An expanded grouping now contains net oil exporters and net importers, and sanctioned and unsanctioned economies, so a single position on trade or energy is difficult to reach. Eg. Russia’s proposals at this summit were sanctions workarounds, while other members trade freely with the economies imposing them.
   The Fix: Move substantive work to plurilateral coalitions of the willing inside BRICS, so a mechanism is not held to the pace of its least interested member.
3. Two members carry an unresolved bilateral dispute: India and China sit inside the same grouping while an unsettled boundary question and a wide trade imbalance run between them. Eg. India’s trade deficit with China reached a record $112.6 billion in 2025-26.
   The Fix: Keep the grouping’s agenda to functional cooperation where the two members’ interests already align, such as disease surveillance and logistics, rather than to security coordination.
4. The de dollarisation agenda outruns the settlement infrastructure: Trade in national currencies requires convertibility, a clearing arrangement and an accepted reserve asset, and the grouping has none of the three at scale. Eg. Iran’s call for expanded national currency trade rests on the New Development Bank, which is capitalised in a fraction of the size of the trade flows involved.
   The Fix: Build a bilateral local currency settlement network with published reference rates before pursuing a common instrument, so the mechanism follows the trade rather than preceding it.
5. A larger grouping dilutes decision making: Expansion has raised the grouping’s representational claim while lowering the odds of consensus on anything contested. Eg. The grouping now runs to eleven members with a widening set of partner countries attending its summits.
   The Fix: Adopt a variable geometry rule under which an initiative proceeds with a stated minimum number of members rather than requiring unanimity.
6. Critical mineral security cannot be built by declaration: Processing capacity, not deposits, is the choke point, and it is concentrated outside most of the membership. Eg. The summit warned against the weaponisation of access to critical minerals without announcing any joint processing or stockpiling arrangement.
   The Fix: Create a joint BRICS strategic reserve and a shared processing investment vehicle for named minerals, so the warning is backed by capacity.

Conclusion

India’s chair year has ended with a set of standing mechanisms rather than a communique alone, which is the specific test the chair set for the grouping at the opening of its third decade. Those mechanisms are administrative rather than binding, and each one now needs a host institution, a budget line and a reporting schedule before it can be judged. The markers to watch are whether the proposed Startup Innovation Fund is capitalised and whether the Integrated Early Warning System is stood up with named national focal points before the next summit, since those two are the initiatives that require money and institutional commitment rather than agreement alone.

Back2Basics: New Development Bank

1. New Development Bank: A multilateral development bank established by the BRICS countries to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects in member states and other emerging economies.
2. Headquarters in Shanghai: Its headquarters is in Shanghai, and it operates regional offices in member countries.
3. Equal shareholding among founders: Founding members hold equal shareholding, which distinguishes it from the weighted voting used by the Bretton Woods institutions.
4. A project book of $140 billion: It is handling projects worth about $140 billion.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2025] Consider the following statements with regard to BRICS: I. The 16th BRICS Summit was held under the Chairship of Russia in Kazan. II. Indonesia has become a full member of BRICS. III. The theme of the 16th BRICS Summit was Strengthening Multiculturalism for Just Global Development and Security. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) I and II (b) II and III (c) I and III (d) I only ANSWER: (a)”