12th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in New Delhi: Parliamentary Diplomacy under India’s Chairship

What is the debate and why now?

The 12th BRICS Parliamentary Forum opened in New Delhi on 26 October 2026 and ends on 27 October 2026, under India's 2026 BRICS chairship. The question is how legislatures can add a people-centric layer to a grouping that is usually seen as a meeting of governments.

The theme is Strengthening Parliaments for People-Centric Development. Four high-level sessions cover resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability, and a special meeting brings together chairs of international affairs committees of member and partner parliaments.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla inaugurated the forum, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with parliamentarians from BRICS countries on 26 October 2026.

What is the case for parliamentary diplomacy?

• Legislatures hold the power to pass laws and approve budgets, so shared practice on technology, finance and transparency can travel faster between them.
• Mr Birla said BRICS countries represent nearly half of the world's population, which gives them a collective responsibility to use technology ethically while protecting parliamentary sovereignty.
• He called for ethical, responsible and transparent technology with human oversight as the paramount principle.
• He cited India's parliamentary digital initiatives: secure online access to questions and answers, the List of Business in 10 languages, simultaneous translation in 22 languages, digitised archives, and the National e-Vidhan Application with One Nation, One Legislative Platform.
• He also described India's digital public infrastructure, which supports financial inclusion and transparent direct benefit transfers to bank accounts.

What is the other side?

The official releases record dialogue and commitments, not binding outcomes. Parliamentary forums work by consensus, so statements stay general, and the sources do not report any adopted text at the time of writing. Parliamentary diplomacy supports but does not replace the work of governments.

• Bilateral meetings on the sidelines covered different priorities: counter-terrorism with Russia, digital governance with the UAE, border peace with China and Chabahar port cooperation with Iran.
• The guidance on technology stresses human oversight, which implies that speed and scale of digital tools must not outrun accountability.
• India's parliamentary digital tools are national practice; whether other members adopt them depends on their own systems.

Claim check: what do the official releases say?

What is the way forward?

• Regular exchanges of parliamentary delegations and dialogue between young and women parliamentarians, as proposed with Russia.
• Capacity building and sharing of best practices on parliamentary diplomacy through the meeting of international affairs committee chairs.
• Human oversight, ethics and transparency as the base of technology used in legislatures.
• Cooperation on climate change and terrorism, and reform of international institutions so they respond to a changing world.

How can this be used in an essay?

• A parliament that speaks to other parliaments turns diplomacy from a state matter into a people matter.
• Technology can widen the reach of democracy only when human oversight stays above the machine.
• Use in essays on democracy, the Global South, technology and ethics, and in GS-II answers on international groupings.

Conclusion

The forum shows India using its 2026 chairship to put legislatures at the centre of BRICS dialogue. The official record so far is about intent and shared practice, not binding decisions. The test will be whether the exchange of delegations and digital practices turns into lasting cooperation.