BRICS

With China confirming the de-escalation of border tensions in the Ladakh region and an agreement on border patrols, a Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines during BRICS Summit may not be entirely surprising.

With countries like India and China resolving their disputes without leaving any scope for the West to interfere and India asserting its strategic autonomy to bolster ties with West’s bête noire Russia, the US will certainly closely monitor the BRICS Summit even as it may claim not to see the grouping as “geopolitical rivals”.

India has steadfastly refused to bow down to Western demand and has continued its time-tested bilateral ties with Russia, expertly navigating the tight geopolitical rope of diplomacy in a multipolar world.

In the Johannesburg summit, Argentina was also invited to join, as Argentina's former government had expressed an interest in making the country a BRICS member. However, Javier Milei, the new President of Argentina, had decided to withdraw the BRICS application. Milei's policies are more USA-centric.

India has held a persistent approach and policy on the Ukraine war. Its repeated attempts to broker talks between Russia and Ukraine, while also not letting the stakeholders' position derail its policy shows that India has indeed drawn the world's attention to Asia.

Mohammed Zubair posted a tweet raising aspersions on the Indian government's dismissal of Chinese claims on Xi-Modi meet.

Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE invited to join BRICS at the summit meeting in Johannesburg

The contentious article in the Daily Maverick had falsely claimed that Prime Minister Modi had declined to exit his aircraft in response to the South African government's choice of sending only a cabinet minister to conduct his official welcome.

The live telecast of the landing operations will begin at 5:20 PM IST on Wednesday. Live actions of landing will be available on the ISRO website, its YouTube channel, Facebook, and public broadcaster DD National TV from 5:27 PM IST on Aug 23, 2023.

The COO of NDB Vladimir Kazbekov said, "We're going to tap (the) Indian market - rupees - maybe by October in India.”