India Hosts 7th BRICS ICT Working Group Meeting in Pune

India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is hosting the BRICS ICT Track in Pune from 17 to 21 August 2026 under India's 2026 BRICS chairship, bringing together communications ministers, senior officials and ICT experts from BRICS member countries. The five-day track features three major components: the 7th BRICS Working Group Meeting for Cooperation in ICTs, the Digital BRICS Forum and Expo, and the 12th BRICS Communications Ministers' Meeting, scheduled for 21 August 2026. Deliberations are focused on four priority areas: Sustainable & Resilient ICT Ecosystems, Cybersecurity & Trustworthy ICT, Digital Skilling & Capacity Building, and Innovation, Startups & Entrepreneurship — reflecting India's chairship push to position digital cooperation as central to the bloc's 2026 agenda. The Pune ICT track runs the same week as the 12th BRICS Environment Ministers' Meeting in New Delhi (which opposed the EU's CBAM), underscoring how India's 2026 BRICS chairship is coordinating parallel ministerial tracks — environment and digital/ICT — around a shared calendar of meetings before the bloc's leaders' summit.
DoT = Department of Telecommunications, leads India's BRICS ICT Track | India holds the BRICS chairship for 2026 | 12th BRICS Communications Ministers' Meeting: 21 August 2026