The New Delhi Declaration of the 18th BRICS Summit endorses local currency trade but offers no concrete mechanism; the editorial argues that India’s own conflicting interests as an exporter, importer and China-wary partner explain the caution.

Figure 1 — BRICS membership as listed for India’s 2026 Chairship

Expansion has made BRICS more diverse — and consensus on financial questions harder. Image courtesy PIB / brics2026.gov.in; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Local currency settlement: trading partners invoice and pay in their own currencies (for example rupee–dirham), cutting conversion costs and exposure to the US dollar.
• Common BRICS currency: a single unit shared by members — India has opposed this, largely owing to the likelihood of Chinese dominance.
• India’s tools: RBI’s July 2022 framework for international trade settlement in rupees through Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVAs); a Local Currency Settlement System with the UAE (2023).
• De-dollarisation: the broader effort to reduce reliance on the dollar for trade, reserves and payments, sharpened by sanctions on some members.

The editorial reads the Declaration’s cautious wording as evidence of intra-BRICS differences, and suggests India may have been among those stressing national priorities. It notes that, per the Commerce Ministry, India’s rupee trade with BRICS partners is limited to the UAE and Russia, in small volumes.

• The Russia experience: Russia accumulated rupees it struggled to spend; new outlets, such as importing petroleum products from India, remain a trickle, the editorial says.
• Third-currency workaround: India has used the UAE dirham to pay for Russian oil — treating any BRICS currency as “local”.
• Exporter’s interest: a depreciating rupee means each export dollar fetches more rupees, so India prefers dollar receipts.
• Importer’s interest: as a major importer, India would like to pay in cheaper local currencies — a contradiction it must eventually resolve.
• The yuan problem: China accounts for about two-thirds of BRICS exports, so BRICS local currency trade would largely become yuan trade.
• Tariff risk: the U.S. President has threatened 100% tariffs on countries adopting a BRICS currency; India, the editorial argues, will not court this lightly.

In favour of expanding local currency trade:

• Lower transaction costs and reduced exchange-rate risk from double conversion through the dollar.
• Resilience against sanctions-related payment disruptions with partners such as Russia and Iran.
• A gradual path to rupee internationalisation, building on RBI’s rupee settlement framework and payment links such as UPI.

Against a rapid push, as the editorial suggests:

• Trade imbalances leave surplus partners holding rupees they cannot easily use, as Russia’s experience showed.
• In practice, the BRICS framework risks becoming yuan-centric, strengthening China’s financial leverage.
• India lacks a pressing reason to exit the dollar, unlike Iran and Russia, and faces possible U.S. trade retaliation.

• Bilateral, need-based arrangements (as with the UAE) rather than a bloc-wide mandate.
• Deepen rupee usability — investment avenues for SRVA balances in Indian government securities and wider convertibility steps.
• Payment interoperability through fast-payment links, which reduce costs without choosing a currency bloc.
• Keep a firm distinction between local currency settlement (supported) and a common BRICS currency (opposed).

Assam’s captive breeding programme has raised the pygmy hog population 32-fold in three decades; the editorial argues that survival in the wild now depends less on breeding and more on restoring the alluvial floodplain grasslands the species needs.

Figure 3 — Pygmy hog at a glance

Uncontrolled burning, grazing and succession of grassland into woodland are the principal threats. Infographic reproduced with credit to the original publisher for educational use.

• Causes of decline: floodplains converted to farms, tea plantations and flood-control works, plus invasive plants, altered flood cycles and unscientific grassland burning.
• Captive breeding is demanding: suids are highly vulnerable to swine diseases, so breeders must track pedigree, follow biosafety protocols and condition animals before release.
• Uncertain numbers: the elusive species is hard to count; the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust estimated about 250 in early 2025, while the programme’s infographic puts it at fewer than 350.
• Genetic risk: low genetic diversity and accumulation of harmful gene variants threaten long-term fitness.
• Management paradox: widespread dry-season fires destroy dense cover, but suppressing natural processes lets trees and shrubs convert grassland to woodland.

• Ex-situ vs in-situ conservation: captive breeding (ex-situ) buys time; long-term survival requires habitat protection (in-situ).
• Ecological succession: without periodic floods or fire, grassland gradually turns into shrub and woodland.
• Umbrella species: protecting one species’ habitat protects many co-occurring species.

In favour of the current approach: a 32-fold rise shows that sustained State–NGO–international partnership can reverse near-extinction, and reintroductions have created additional wild populations.

Against complacency: grasslands are often treated as “wastelands” in land-use policy, receive less attention than forests, and remain fragmented; captive stock alone cannot secure evolutionary fitness.

• Reverse fragmentation in protected grasslands, especially Rupahi and Kanchanbari, as the editorial recommends.
• Restore buffer zones around Manas, Orang and Sonai Rupai.
• Science-based fire and grazing regimes that mimic natural disturbance without destroying cover.
• Genetic management of captive and wild stock, and a national grassland conservation policy.

A recent public statement in London — that people of Indian origin who are citizens of another country owe their loyalty to their country of residence — prompts the author to examine whether national loyalty is defined by faith, culture, territory or citizenship.

• The trigger: a statement in London on 6 September 2026 that people of Indian origin holding foreign citizenship should side with their karmabhoomi (land of residence and work) in any conflict of interest, while drawing values from their janmabhoomi (land of origin).
• Territory and culture intertwined: the author notes that no conception of the nation is purely territorial or purely cultural, since people and ideas cross borders and borders themselves change over time.
• Globalisation’s complication: migration and the backlash against it have made the link between culture, territory and belonging harder to settle.
• Diaspora dilemmas: migrants may carry dual emotional attachments — for instance in sporting loyalties — and, the author says, sometimes transplant caste, sect and religious divisions to new countries.
• Changing context abroad: the growing visibility of Indian-origin communities in Western politics has coincided with rising nativism, which questions whether migrants of a different faith can be loyal citizens.
• The consistency test: the author argues that if loyalty abroad rests on residence and citizenship rather than faith, the same standard must apply to all citizens within India — echoing Nehru’s advice that Indians abroad identify with their adopted countries.

In favour of a citizenship-based standard of loyalty:

• It matches India’s constitutional design, where citizenship rests on birth, descent, registration and naturalisation, never on religion.
• A uniform standard for all citizens strengthens fraternity and equality before law (Article 14).
• It helps Indian-origin communities abroad answer nativist suspicion by affirming civic loyalty to host states, supporting India’s soft power.

Against, or complicating, the argument:

• Many hold that cultural or civilisational identity and civic loyalty are complementary layers, not rival claims.
• The diaspora (foreign citizens abroad) and citizens at home are in legally different positions, so direct comparison has limits.
• Multiple identities — cultural ties to a homeland alongside political loyalty to a state — are normal in a globalised world and need not imply divided allegiance.

• Anchor public debate on belonging in constitutional citizenship and the values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.
• Frame diaspora engagement around culture, trade and knowledge ties, respecting the political sovereignty of host nations.
• Encourage diaspora communities to avoid importing sectarian and caste divisions into host societies.