New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Sunday (September 13, 2026) put defence and security cooperation at the heart of India’s outreach to key partners in Asia and Africa. The engagements underscored New Delhi’s push to leverage the BRICS platform not only for economic coordination but also to reinforce defence partnerships, boost capacity building and promote indigenous defence exports across the Indo-Pacific, Central Asia and the African continent.
Modi held separate talks with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Philippines President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Ugandan Vice President Jessica Rose Epel Alupo, Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima Mustapha, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Burundi President Évariste Ndayishimiye, who also chairs the African Union. While trade, technology and broader strategic ties featured in the discussions, defence collaboration emerged as a common thread, reflecting India’s intent to deepen security linkages with countries that are important to its expanding strategic footprint.
With Kazakhstan, the focus was on strengthening defence-industrial cooperation and exploring joint production and maintenance arrangements, building on existing ties in energy and connectivity. Talks with the Philippines centred on maritime security, defence training and possible supplies of Indian-made platforms, as Manila looks to diversify its defence procurement amid rising tensions in the South China Sea.
In the Africa-focused meetings, India pitched itself as a reliable partner for capacity building, offering training slots, lines of credit for defence equipment and cooperation in areas such as counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and maritime domain awareness. The engagements with Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa and Burundi/AU also dovetail with New Delhi’s broader Africa strategy, which combines development partnerships with security cooperation to counterbalance other global powers’ influence on the continent.
The BRICS summit itself concluded with the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration by consensus, even as India used the multilateral setting to advance bilateral defence and security agendas. By aligning its BRICS diplomacy with targeted bilateral outreach, New Delhi signalled that it is moving “from rule-takers to rule-shapers”, using the grouping to consolidate defence ties while projecting Indian industry as a credible supplier of affordable, battle-tested military hardware to the Global South.