BRICS | The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is termed as BRICS. Prior to the induction of South Africa into the group in 2011, the alliance was referred as BRIC. The formation of the multilateral grouping lied in a sole agenda to highlight the issues of global South and to challenge the Western hegemony in the global system.

Formation of BRICS | The acronym was first introduced in the 2001 publication — Building Better Global Economic BRICs by Jim O'Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. BRICS denote the group of fastest-growing economies that would dominate the world economy by 2050.

Formation of BRICS | The BRIC country leaders held their first meeting in July 2006 at Russia's St. Petersburg. Later, the meeting among Foreign Ministers in New York in September 2010 pavyed the way for South Africa as a full member of the bloc.

BRICS Summit 2023 | The theme for the 15th BRICS summit is "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism". Among key topics to be discussed are de-dollarization strategies at the backdrop of prevailing geopolitical and geoeconomic situation.

Expansion of BRICS | Members like China, Russia and South Africa has been at the forefront for new members to be admitted to the alliance to expand group's footholds. As of now, over 40 countries, including several oil producing West Asian nations, have expressed their willingness to join the bloc.

Significance of BRICS | BRICS is a group of emerging economies comprising 40 per cent of the world population and 31 per cent of the GDP, and more than 26 percent share in world land surface. The group has world populous and second most populous countries as its members.