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India has chaired BRICS three times before — in 2012, in Goa in 2016, and in 2021 — but the summit it hosts at New Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13 looks nothing like those earlier turns. Here is what has changed. A much bigger room. The last time India ran BRICS, in 2021, the group had five members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — and that summit was held entirely over video because of Covid. This year’s meeting is in person, and the guest list is far longer. According to the government’s official BRICS 2026 website, the bloc now has 11 full members: the original five plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who came in from January 2024, and Indonesia from January 2025. India has also invited 10 “partner countries”, a category that did not exist in 2021, among them Belarus, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam.