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India’s balancing act with the West as Brics flexes new muscles
For years, Western critics have dismissed Brics as a relatively inconsequential entity.
But this past week, at its annual summit in Russia, the group triumphantly showcased just how far it has come.
Top leaders from 36 countries, as well as the UN Secretary General, attended the three-day event, and Brics formally welcomed four new members – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. More membership expansions could soon follow. Brics had previously added only one new member – South Africa in 2010 – since its inception (as the Bric states) in 2006.
There’s a growing buzz around Brics, which has long projected itself as an alternative to Western-led models of global governance. Today, it’s becoming more prominent and influential as it capitalises on growing dissatisfaction with Western policies and financial structures.
Ironically, India – perhaps the most Western-oriented Brics member – is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the group’s evolution and expansion
India enjoys deep ties with most new Brics members. Egypt is a growing trade and security partner in the Middle East. The UAE (along with Saudi Arabia, which has been offered Brics membership but hasn’t yet formally joined) is one of India’s most important partners overall. India’s relationship with Ethiopia is one of its longest and closest in Africa.
Brics’ original members continue to offer important benefits for India too.
Delhi can leverage Brics to signal its continued commitment to close friend Russia, despite Western efforts to isolate it. And working with rival China in Brics helps India in its slow, cautious effort to ease tensions with Beijing, especially on the heels of a border patrolling deal announced by Delhi on the eve of the summit. That announcement likely gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi the necessary diplomatic and political space to meet with Chinese President Xi Jingping on the summit’s sidelines.
Additionally, Brics enables India to advance its core foreign policy principle of strategic autonomy, whereby it aims to balance relations with a wide spectrum of geopolitical players, without formally allying with any of them.
Delhi has important partnerships, both bilateral and multilateral, inside and outside the West. In that sense, its presence in an increasingly robust Brics and relations with its members can be balanced with its participation in a revitalised Indo-Pacific Quad and its strong ties with the US and other Western powers.
More broadly, Brics’ priorities are India’s priorities.
A diver has died during preliminary operations to recover British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s superyacht from the waters off the coast of northern Sicily, local police said.
The accident happened on Friday while the diver was underwater in Porticello, police said, adding the precise cause of death was still unknown.
According to local Italian media, the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for a specialist salvage company.
It comes as salvage ships arrived earlier this month to waters off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, where the Bayesian vessel sank during freak weather last August.
Seven of the 22 people onboard the Bayesian last summer were killed, including Lynch 59, and his 18 year old daughter Hannah..
Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy, 71, US lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the yacht’s chef Recaldo Thomas who was originally from Antigua, also died in the sinking on 19 August.
Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat including a one-year-old and Mike Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares.
The cause of the sinking is still under investigation with naval experts saying a yacht of Bayesian’s calibre should have been able to withstand the storm and certainly should not have sunk as rapidly as it did.
The salvage operation is being overseen by British marine consultancy TMC Marine and led by Dutch-based companies Hebo, a maritime services company from Rotterdam, and SMIT Salvage, with support from Italian specialists.
About 70 specialist personnel have been deployed to Sicily from across Europe to work on the recovery operation
On Thursday, the team said on-site preparations were on schedule and “significant progress” had been made over the past five days.
Analysis of the yacht and the surrounding seabed confirmed there had been no change to its condition since the last inspection, meaning plans to raise the vessel can now go ahead.
Work to move the Bayesian into an upright position and lift it to the surface was scheduled to begin later this month – subject to suitable weather and sea conditions.
Before the vessel is transported to port, sea water will be pumped out of it.
Before the Bayesian is raised it will be held in position by steel slings, as salvage workers detach the vessel’s extensive rigging and 72m (236ft) mast, thought to be one of the tallest in the world.
These will then be stored on the seabed and recovered after the team has recovered the ship’s hull, which investigators say is a primary source of evidence.
There has not been any pollution from the yacht reported, with conditions being monitored and efforts made to secure its tank vents and openings.
Lynch and his daughter were said to have lived in the vicinity of London, and the Bloomers lived in Sevenoaks in Kent.
The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was cleared in June last year of carrying out a massive fraud over the sale of the firm to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.
The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.
[BBC]
The Sri Lanka Coast Guard launched an operation to clear the oil spill caused by the crash of a Sri Lanka Air Force Bell 212 helicopter into the Maduru Oya Reservoir, during a training flight on 09 May 2025.
The efforts to clear the oil spill are ongoing and will continue today, 10 May.
Virat Kohli has communicated his desire to retire from Test cricket to the BCCI ahead of the big five-match series in England starting June 20, for which he is expected to be a part of the squad. ESPNcricinfo understands that Kohli has been having these conversations with officials of the BCCI for the past month or so.
If Kohli doesn’t change his mind, he will bring the curtain down on a glorious career that has spanned 14 years and included 123 Tests – 68 of them as captain – in which he has 9230 runs at an average of 46.85.
But it hasn’t been a particularly fruitful time in the format for Kohli of late. When he scored 100 not out in the Perth Test in November 2024, it was his first century in Tests since July 2023 (against West Indies in Port of Spain), and his average, 55.10 at its peak after he scored his career best of 254 not out vs South Africa in Pune in 2019, has been 32.56 over the last 24 months.
(Cricinfo)
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