Analysis: India's BRICS presidency is creating an opportunity to convert the country's digital experience into practical cooperation for the Global South. The 12th BRICS Communications Ministers Meeting in Pune is therefore more than another diplomatic calendar event. It is a test of whether India can help build shared rules and workable projects for an era defined by data, networks and artificial intelligence.
Akashvani reported that Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will chair the meeting under the theme "Innovate, Cooperate and Transform for a Resilient Future." The agenda includes emerging technologies, digital public infrastructure, future networks, cybersecurity, capacity building and inclusive connectivity.
India arrives with implementation experience
India's advantage in this discussion is not that every digital problem has been solved. It is that population-scale systems have already been tested under difficult conditions: hundreds of millions of users, many languages, uneven connectivity and wide differences in income and digital literacy.
Digital identity, real-time payments, electronic documents and direct transfers have shown that public digital rails can lower transaction costs and widen access. The model is not a finished product to be copied mechanically. Its value is the design lesson that shared infrastructure can remain open to banks, start-ups, governments and citizens while supporting very large volumes.
The Modi government's Digital India programme has made this architecture a central element of India's development story. At BRICS, the persuasive approach is to offer tools, training and interoperable standards without demanding that partners adopt a single political or commercial model.
Resilience is now a development issue
The word "resilient" in the Pune theme matters. Digital networks are now essential infrastructure. A cyberattack on a payment switch, a submarine cable failure or dependence on one equipment supplier can interrupt ordinary life as severely as a physical transport breakdown.
BRICS countries have different strategic alignments, legal systems and technology ecosystems. That makes a sweeping common rulebook unlikely. But practical cooperation is possible: incident-response exercises, shared research on network security, training for public officials, common approaches to spam and fraud, and technical standards that allow systems to connect safely.
India can credibly argue that resilience must include affordability. Secure networks that only wealthy cities can use do not solve the development challenge. Future connectivity policy must reach rural communities, small enterprises, schools and local governments while also protecting users from fraud and misuse.
From digital diplomacy to economic opportunity
Communications policy also shapes industrial policy. Open Radio Access Networks, satellite communications, fibre equipment, data centres, cybersecurity services and language technologies are expanding markets. If BRICS cooperation creates transparent standards and real pilot projects, Indian companies can participate as builders rather than only as buyers.
This is where the government's emphasis on domestic manufacturing and trusted technology can complement diplomacy. India does not need to promise self-sufficiency in every component. It needs competitive firms, diversified supply chains and partnerships that reduce single-point dependence.
The Pune meeting also follows the BRICS Youth Council and Youth Summit in Gandhinagar, where innovators and entrepreneurs worked on a joint statement. Connecting ministerial decisions with young builders would make the presidency more than a sequence of formal declarations.
India's leadership should be judged by the next steps
A strong final statement will help, but the real measure is what follows: working groups with deadlines, joint cybersecurity drills, shared training programmes, pilot connections between public platforms, and procurement opportunities that include start-ups and smaller firms.
BRICS contains countries with competing interests, so India should lead with confidence and realism. Its best contribution is a development-first digital agenda: technology that is secure but not exclusionary, sovereign but interoperable, innovative but accountable.
That is a constructive expression of India's rising influence. Under the BJP-led government, digital public infrastructure has become both a domestic governance tool and a diplomatic asset. Pune offers a chance to turn that asset into durable cooperation for a wider world.
