International Relations Current Affairs September 2026

The inaugural International Space Summit 2026 was held on 9-10 September at the Grand Palais in Paris, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in partnership with Germany. Representatives from nearly 90 countries attended, alongside space agencies, scientists and private-sector stakeholders, around three themes: the global space economy, science and exploration, and space security. A total of 51 announcements worth about EUR 20 billion were made, including EUR 15.7 billion under the EU's IRIS-squared satellite constellation programme and EUR 5 billion from private players. India and France signed three agreements on satellite launches, surveillance systems and microsatellites, with India's SBS-III constellation planned for 2027-2030.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in New Delhi on 11 September 2026, ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit, and resolved to lift bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030 from roughly $65 billion today. The leaders reviewed defence cooperation, while Modi raised the safety of Indian seafarers in the Black Sea and reiterated India's readiness to back any peace initiative on Ukraine. Putin invited Modi to the next annual India-Russia Summit, expected around year-end. The talks formed part of Modi's summit-week bilateral run that also took in Xi Jinping and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian.

India hosted the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12-13 September 2026 - the flagship of a chairship that had already run ministerial tracks in Jaipur, Kochi, Pune and Lucknow. Under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability", leaders unanimously adopted the New Delhi Declaration 2026, backing UN Security Council reform, conflict prevention and a larger voice for the Global South. It welcomed the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2030, local-currency trade settlement and lending by the New Development Bank, and cooperation in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation. China chairs BRICS in 2027.

The Supreme Court of India hosted the BRICS Chief Justices' Forum in New Delhi from 4 to 6 September 2026, where Chief Justice of India Surya Kant held bilateral meetings with judicial leaders from 10 countries on cooperation, mediation and arbitration. The forum is one strand of India's 2026 BRICS Presidency, which also produced the 14th BRICS Science Ministerial at Chennai under Dr Jitendra Singh, a Sports Ministers' Meeting at Visakhapatnam under Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, the 8th BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science in Goa, and the 18th Academic Forum at Lucknow. All of it builds toward the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri hosted a Quad Sherpas' Meeting in New Delhi, convened to carry forward the outcomes of the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting held in New Delhi on 26 May 2026. The Sherpas of India, the United States, Japan and Australia reaffirmed the importance of focusing on concrete, action-oriented initiatives, and agreed to continue consultations ahead of the next Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting. The meeting comes as New Delhi anchors a dense season of plurilateral diplomacy, including India's 2026 BRICS chairship and the BRICS Chief Justices' Forum, underlining India's positioning across both Indo-Pacific and Global South groupings.

The 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit was held at the Yrys Ordo Congress Hall in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on 31 August and 1 September 2026, marking the grouping's 25th anniversary. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov chaired the Council of Heads of State and handed the rotating chairmanship to Pakistan. Members signed the Bishkek Declaration and adopted over 20 strategic decisions, approving institutional arrangements for the Universal Centre for Countering Security Challenges and the SCO Anti-Narcotics Centre Executive Committee. PM Narendra Modi, who reached Bishkek after a Uzbekistan leg, pressed his SECURE vision and coordinated counter-terror action, and met Vladimir Putin on the sidelines. Lahore was named SCO Tourist and Cultural Capital.

The UN General Assembly adopted its first-ever declaration on sea-level rise on 24 September 2026 at a high-level meeting in New York during its 81st session. The four-page text states that countries threatened by rising oceans do not automatically lose statehood if territory is submerged, and supports the continuity of maritime zones such as territorial seas and exclusive economic zones under UNCLOS even as coastlines shift. It calls for stronger protection of coastal communities, early-warning systems and adaptation finance. Agreed by member states including the United States, it builds on the ICJ's July 2025 advisory opinion and a 2024 ITLOS opinion.

The United States and China agreed in Washington, D.C. on 25 September 2026 to set up an artificial intelligence incident communication channel and a US-China Super Intelligence Dialogue. The channel is intended to let the two governments notify each other quickly about serious AI malfunctions or misuse, borrowing from the hotline logic long used for nuclear and military risk reduction, while the dialogue creates a standing forum on frontier and superintelligent systems. The move lands days after OpenAI disclosed that its AI agents had interacted with United States government websites during a review of unanticipated model behaviour, sharpening the case for state-to-state AI incident reporting.

The 79th session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia (RC79) was held in Dili, Timor-Leste, from 7 to 10 September 2026, chaired by Timor-Leste's Health Minister Dr Elia dos Reis Amaral, with India represented by Union Health Minister J P Nadda. The session unanimously adopted the 'Dili Declaration on Human Resources for Health: Equity in Specialized Care', and passed resolutions on medical devices and assistive technology, health facility resilience, patient and blood safety, ending tuberculosis by 2030, and extending the regional action plan on viral hepatitis, HIV and STIs to 2030. WHO honoured India for sustaining maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination over the past decade.

The UN General Assembly on 4 September 2026 adopted an African-led resolution promoting maps that show continents in accurate relative sizes, endorsing the Equal Earth projection and moving away from the 16th-century Mercator projection in education and public mapping. Led by Togo and backed by the African Union, it passed with 164 votes in favour, 6 abstentions and 1 against — the sole opposing vote cast by the United States. Togo framed the issue as one of "cognitive justice", since Mercator maps make Greenland appear far larger than its true area relative to Africa. Togo plans to revise school textbooks by end-2026.

India and Qatar agreed on 30 September 2026 to accelerate negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty and a Free Trade Agreement, in talks held in Doha on the sidelines of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's 2026 Annual Meeting. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the FTA process is being accelerated, while Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised the need for normal trade flows and unimpeded navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar reiterated a commitment to invest USD 10 billion in India and plans a Qatar Investment Authority office there. Bilateral trade stands at USD 14.15 billion, with a stated aim of doubling it by 2030.

King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as Morocco's Prime Minister on 29 September 2026, making her the first woman to head the government in the kingdom's history and only the third woman to serve as prime minister anywhere in the Arab world. Born in Marrakesh in 1976, she is the city's mayor — the first woman to hold that post, from 2009 — and served as urban planning minister. She leads the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), which won 97 of 395 seats in the parliamentary election, unseating the National Rally of Independents (RNI) that had led the previous government.

India and the Netherlands signed two Memoranda of Understanding on water-sector cooperation focused on the Kalpasar Project in Gujarat. Union Jal Shakti Minister C. R. Patil and Dutch Vice Minister for Infrastructure and Water Management Jaap Slootmaker chaired the bilateral meeting in New Delhi on the sidelines of the 9th India International Water Week 2026. Kalpasar envisages a vast freshwater reservoir across the Gulf of Khambhat, impounding runoff from the Sabarmati, Mahi and Dhadhar rivers and supplemented by water conveyed from the Narmada. The Netherlands, with deep delta and dyke engineering experience, will contribute technical expertise on feasibility, salinity control and coastal engineering.

The Maldives repaid a USD 150 million loan to India on 17 September 2026, closing the final USD 50 million tranche of treasury bills first subscribed by the State Bank of India in 2019 and rolled over six times. Male repaid the principal while the Government of India bore roughly USD 45 million in interest over five years. Maldivian Finance Minister Hassan Zareer confirmed the repayment and MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed the settlement on 18 September. Maldivian reserves slipped below USD 600 million after the payment, from USD 643.8 million at end-August 2026. India retains a Rs 30 billion currency swap facility with Male.

India and Japan will observe 2027 as the India-Japan Year of Shared Horizons, marking 75 years of diplomatic relations, it was announced on 18 September 2026. Formal diplomatic ties were established in 1952, after the two countries signed a separate peace treaty in the years following the Second World War. The commemorative year will feature exchanges spanning culture, economy, technology and people-to-people links. The partnership already rests on the India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the annual army exercise Dharma Guardian and a maritime-security cooperation arrangement, with Japan also financing the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project and serving alongside India in the Quad.

India dispatched on 12 September 2026 the first consignment of components for a 70-metre Bailey bridge to Nepal, handed over to Nepal's Road Division at Hetauda for installation at Betrawati in Nuwakot district. The bridge will restore connectivity lost to flash floods on 26 August 2026, triggered by a glacial event near the Nepal-Tibet border that struck the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system. India's assistance package includes over 130 tonnes of relief material, 54 expert personnel for rescue and forensic work and specialised equipment, with at least eight Indian Air Force special flights carrying shelters, blankets, hygiene kits, solar lamps and medicines.

India objected on 9 September 2026 to a new United Nations world map showing anomalies in the depiction of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin. The map was issued by the UN Geospatial unit on 1 July 2026 using the Equal Earth projection, an equal-area projection introduced in 2018. The Ministry of External Affairs stated on 8 September that Arunachal Pradesh is integral to India and Aksai Chin part of the Union Territory of Ladakh, and that India's sovereign territory must be shown in line with its official map. India had voted for the UNGA resolution "Correct the Map" on 4 September, clarifying it endorsed equal-area mapping, not any boundary depiction.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for bilateral talks in New Delhi on 13 September 2026, on the margins of the 18th BRICS Summit - Xi's first visit to India in seven years. The two sides agreed to work towards a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the boundary question and to normalise ties by expanding trade and investment, continuing the thaw that began after the eastern Ladakh standoff. The meeting followed the New Delhi Declaration adopted on 12 September, and sat alongside Modi's bilaterals with Vladimir Putin and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian.

The BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir at Bussy-Saint-Georges in France's Seine-et-Marne department was inaugurated on 6 September 2026 — France's first traditionally designed stone Hindu temple and the largest of its kind in mainland Europe. It was consecrated by BAPS spiritual leader Mahant Swami Maharaj, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi joining by video conference. Construction began in April 2024 using hand-carved stones shipped from India and assembled with French engineering support from the architectural firm Arte Charpentier. The opening capped a 13-day Festival of Culture from 2 to 14 September that included a Jal Yatra on the River Seine, and coincides with 2026 being observed as the India–France Year of Innovation.

The U.S.–India TRUST Fellowship was launched in Bengaluru in September 2026 to fund collaborative research by American scholars at Indian institutions. TRUST stands for Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology, the bilateral framework announced on 13 February 2025 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, which replaced the earlier Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). The fellowship will support up to 20 American postdoctoral researchers and early-career faculty for 12-month stints, hosted at IISc Bengaluru, IIT Madras and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. Research areas include artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing and biotechnology, with funding from Pratiksha Trust and Mazumdar Shaw Philanthropy.

India and Belgium signed a defence cooperation Letter of Intent and agreed to double bilateral trade within five years during Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever's official visit to India from 2 to 4 September 2026. India will post a resident defence attache in Brussels. The two sides widened cooperation to semiconductors and micro-electronics, pairing Indian institutions with the Belgian research centre imec, renewed an MoU on renewable energy focused on green hydrogen and solar, and added critical minerals and fintech, moving the relationship beyond its traditional diamond trade base. The visit also framed the KSSL-Thales 70-mm rocket agreement announced the same week.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a two-day state visit to Uzbekistan on 29-30 August 2026 at the invitation of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev - his fourth visit, coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the India-Uzbekistan strategic partnership and Uzbekistan's 35th Independence Day. The two sides signed 11 MoUs and agreements spanning culture, education, health, mining, tourism, finance, digital payments and Digital Public Infrastructure, and set a bilateral trade target of USD 5 billion by 2030. Modi was conferred Uzbekistan's highest state honour, the Order of 'Oliy Darajali Do'stlik' (Order of Highest Friendship), his 36th international honour. The visit immediately preceded the 26th SCO Summit at Bishkek.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed a two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan from 31 August to 1 September 2026 — the second leg of his Central Asia tour after Uzbekistan — at the invitation of President Sadyr Japarov, to attend the 26th SCO Summit in Bishkek. Alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, he attended the opening of the 6th World Nomad Games, a biennial traditional sports event held in Bishkek from 31 August to 6 September. Modi held bilateral meetings with several SCO leaders and gifted President Japarov a ten-volume English Mahabharata translated by Bibek Debroy and a Ladakhi Tsugdul blanket.

The 4th Meeting of the India-Denmark Joint Working Group on MSME development, innovation and intellectual property was held in Copenhagen from 24 to 28 August 2026, between India's Ministry of MSME and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. Talks covered technology adoption, technology commercialisation and IP-led growth. The Indian delegation was led by Dr Rajneesh, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner (MSME); Denmark's was headed by Maria Skou, Deputy Director General of the DKPTO, with Ambassador Manish Prabhat participating. The delegation visited Aarhus University's Innovation 'Kitchen' and Agro Food Park on 28 August and joined the closing panel of TechBBQ, a Nordic startup event.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal announced that the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement will enter into force on 20 October 2026, both sides having completed ratification and domestic procedures. The pact was signed on 27 April 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, by Goyal and New Zealand's Trade Minister Todd McClay. From day one, 100% of India's exports to New Zealand get duty-free access, benefiting textiles, leather and footwear, gems and jewellery, engineering goods and processed foods. Indian manufacturers also gain duty-free inputs such as coking coal and metal scrap. It completes a chain from talks concluding in December 2025 through New Zealand's parliamentary ratification in mid-September 2026.

Warren Buffett, aged 96, stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway on 18 September 2026 and became chairman emeritus, staying on the board as a director. His eldest son Howard Buffett, 71, was elected chairman; Howard has been a Berkshire director since 1993. Warren Buffett had chaired the US conglomerate, which spans insurance, rail, energy, manufacturing, retail and finance, since 1970, building it to a valuation of about USD 1 trillion. He announced in May 2025 that he would give up the chief executive's job, and Greg Abel took over as CEO at the start of 2026 and continues to run day-to-day operations.

New Zealand's Parliament passed the legislation implementing the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on 16 September 2026, approving the bill by 93 votes to 29. The agreement was signed in New Delhi on 27 April 2026, after negotiations that began in March 2025 and concluded in December 2025, and will enter into force once both countries complete ratification. It eliminates or reduces tariffs on about 95% of New Zealand's exports to India, while Indian goods receive 100% duty-free access to New Zealand. Two-way trade reached NZ$3.99 billion in the year to June 2026, and both sides aim to double bilateral trade by 2030.

Qualcomm Technologies and Amazon announced a partnership worth over USD 60 billion to develop customised AI chips for Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres, centred on AI inference and high-speed optical connectivity. The agreement was signed by Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon and AWS Vice President Prasad Kalyanaraman. It covers multi-generation chip development using Qualcomm's SerDes and optical digital signal processing technologies, with optical connectivity supporting data transfer rates up to 1.6 terabits per second. In return, Qualcomm will use AWS services such as Amazon Bedrock for electronic design automation workloads, shortening its own chip development cycles through cloud-based, AI-enabled design.

Seven core OPEC+ producers — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman — kept their October 2026 crude oil output targets unchanged from September levels at a virtual meeting on 6 September 2026. Their combined quota stands at 31.01 million barrels per day, excluding compensation volumes, with Saudi Arabia at 10.478 mbpd and Russia at 9.949 mbpd. The group has paused further monthly increases while it negotiates new production baselines for 2027. The decision follows the completion in August 2026 of a phased rollback that restored the 1.65 million bpd of voluntary cuts introduced in 2023. The next review meeting is set for 4 October 2026.

The Bank of Canada unveiled a new CAD 20 banknote carrying the image of King Charles III, the first British monarch to appear on a Canadian note in over seven decades and the first change since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. Canada thus becomes the first Commonwealth country outside Britain to put King Charles on a banknote. The note is vertically oriented — only the second such Canadian note after the CAD 10 bill, which the International Bank Note Society judged the world's best design in 2018. Its reverse depicts the Vimy Ridge Memorial in France, and it carries floral emblems of Canada's 13 provinces and territories. Circulation begins in early 2027.

India and Liberia launched the Group of Friends on Safety & Security of Shipping & Seafarers in New York on 25 September 2026, on the margins of the UN General Assembly's high-level week. The grouping is meant to build coalition support for protecting merchant shipping and crews against attacks, piracy and detention in contested waters, and for faster repatriation of seafarers. Liberia is a natural co-sponsor because it operates one of the world's largest open ship registries, while India supplies a large share of the global seafarer workforce. The launch runs alongside India's wider maritime push, including the new Mega Port designations.

US President Donald Trump extended the USD 100,000 fee on certain H-1B petitions until 21 September 2027. The levy, created by a proclamation of 19 September 2025, was due to lapse on 21 September 2026. A federal district court vacated it on 8 June 2026 as an unlawful tax and the First Circuit declined in July 2026 to stay that ruling, so USCIS cannot currently collect it. The fee targets new petitions for workers outside the United States, not extensions or students already there. A separate executive order of 19 September 2026 orders closer scrutiny of employers' layoffs, and DHS has proposed a USD 103,265 fee for all cap-subject petitions.

The Permanent Delegation of India to UNESCO announced the inclusion of four new cultural sites on the Tentative List of the World Heritage Convention: the Rangpur-Sivasagar Historic Ensemble (Assam), the Colonial Penal Settlement (Andaman Islands), Nicobarese Cultural Continuity (Nicobar Islands) and the Painted Haveli Towns of Shekhawati (Rajasthan). India's tentative list now stands at 73 sites, comprising 53 cultural, 17 natural and 3 mixed entries. This completes the picture from the Rangpur-Sivasagar listing tracked earlier this week: the Colonial Penal Settlement bundles Chatham, Viper and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose islands with the Cellular Jail, while Shekhawati's painted havelis span Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Churu districts.

China Southern Airlines will restart regular passenger services between Guangzhou and New Delhi from 21 September 2026, returning to the Indian market after a long suspension of direct India-China air links. The resumption is part of the steady normalisation of India-China ties that followed the easing of the eastern Ladakh standoff, and it lands in the same week as Xi Jinping's New Delhi visit for the 18th BRICS Summit, where he and PM Modi agreed to expand trade and investment. Restored direct connectivity is expected to ease business travel, student mobility and air-cargo movement between the two economies.

Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and Drydocks World (DDW), a Dubai-based DP World company, signed a 50:50 joint venture on 11 September 2026, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, to operate and expand the International Ship Repair Facility (ISRF) at Willingdon Island, Kochi. The roughly Rs 1,800 crore JV gives DDW operational control, letting it nominate three of five directors and the key executives. Built at a cost of Rs 970 crore and operational since August 2024, the 30-acre ISRF has six workstations and about 1,400 metres of berthing, and can handle six vessels at a time and about 82 a year.

India has fielded its largest-ever contingent of 70 competitors at the 48th WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai, China, held from 22 to 27 September 2026 at the National Exhibition and Convention Centre. The team competes in 63 of the 64 skill categories, debuting in 11 new ones including Dental Prosthetics, Unmanned Aerial Systems, Aircraft Maintenance, Software Testing and Optoelectronic Technology. Competitors come from 16 states, with Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu best represented. The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and NSDC led the preparation, with a send-off in New Delhi on 15 September addressed by Minister of State Jayant Chaudhary.