BRICS: Modi to travel to Russia on October 22

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia on October 22 and 23 for the BRICS summit. This is Modi's second visit to Russia after coming to power for the third time. He will hold a meeting with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Modi is going to the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin. Modi had visited Russia in July this year. The theme of this year's BRICS summit is "Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security".

The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St Petersburg in Russia in 2006. After a series of high-level meetings, the first BRIC summit was held in Russia's Yekaterinburg in 2009.

BRIC group was renamed as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) after South Africa was accepted as a full member at the BRIC Foreign Ministers' meeting in New York in September 2010.

BRICS is an important grouping bringing together the major emerging economies from the world, comprising 41 per cent of the world population, having 24 per cent of the world GDP and over 16 per cent share in the world trade.