BRICS Culture Ministers’ meet adopts Bhopal Declaration to boost cultural cooperation; focuses on creators’ networking
The 11th (XI) BRICS Culture Ministers' Meeting concluded in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, held under India's BRICS Chairship for 2026, and adopted the "Bhopal Declaration" to deepen cultural cooperation among member and partner states.
The meeting was the culmination of a three-stage BRICS Culture Working Group process: a virtual session (April 2026), a meeting in Varanasi (June 2026), and the concluding session in Bhopal (5-6 August 2026).
Participation spanned 14 countries — 10 BRICS member states plus 4 partner countries.
The declaration establishes a framework for cooperation in cultural and creative industries, networking among creators, expanded digital market access, and addresses fair remuneration for copyright-protected works used in AI systems.
A parallel two-day BRICS Culture Festival was held in Bhopal (6-7 August 2026), featuring performances from Belarus, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, and the UAE.
BRICS as an International Grouping
BRICS is an intergovernmental grouping of major emerging economies that functions as a coordination platform rather than a treaty-based international organization, making its institutional details (origin, expansion, and lack of a permanent secretariat) a frequently tested static fact.
Key Details
- Originated as "BRIC" (Brazil, Russia, India, China) in 2006 on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit; the first formal BRIC Summit was held in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia; South Africa joined in 2010, forming "BRICS" from the 2011 Sanya Summit.
- Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE became full members from January 2024, and Indonesia from January 2025, expanding BRICS membership beyond the original five.
- BRICS has no founding treaty, permanent secretariat, or headquarters; its principal financial institution, the New Development Bank (NDB, established 2014), is headquartered in Shanghai.
- India held the rotating BRICS Chairship in 2026, hosting sectoral tracks (including the Culture Track) culminating in the Bhopal Declaration.
The Bhopal meeting was conducted as part of the annual sherpa/sous-sherpa sectoral track structure that BRICS uses in the absence of a standing secretariat, with India's chairship year determining the host city and thematic priorities, culture being one of several tracks alongside finance, health, and security.
Copyright Protection and Artificial Intelligence
The question of how copyright law applies to AI systems that use creative works as training data, or that generate new works, is an emerging static topic bridging Art & Culture with Science & Technology and Governance.
Key Details
- India's Copyright Act, 1957 (amended up to 2012) protects only works with identifiable human authorship; under Section 2(d)(vi), the "author" of a computer-generated work is defined as the person who causes the work to be created, meaning AI-generated output without meaningful human input currently falls outside clear statutory protection.
- Fair remuneration and transparency for the use of copyrighted material in AI training and generation is an active global policy gap, with no binding international treaty yet governing AI-copyright interaction; WIPO has been the principal forum discussing harmonized rules.
- India's National Intellectual Property Rights Policy (2016) and its accession to international IP frameworks (Berne Convention, WIPO Copyright Treaty) form the backdrop against which any new AI-copyright commitments would be implemented domestically.
The Bhopal Declaration's reference to "transparency and fair and equitable remuneration" for copyright-protected works used in AI systems reflects a multilateral attempt, ahead of binding treaty law, to build a normative consensus among BRICS states on protecting creators' economic rights against unauthorized AI use.
Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power Institutions
Cultural cooperation frameworks are instruments of soft power diplomacy, extending India's cultural outreach through structured multilateral platforms distinct from bilateral cultural exchange agreements.
Key Details
- India's Ministry of Culture and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR, established 1950) are the principal institutional vehicles for India's cultural diplomacy; ICCR operates cultural centres abroad and administers scholarships and exchange programmes.
- BRICS Culture Ministers' Meetings have been held annually since their inception as part of the BRICS sectoral cooperation architecture, alongside other tracks such as BRICS Business Council, BRICS Film Festival, and academic/think-tank forums (Track 2).
- Declarations adopted at such ministerial meetings are non-binding political commitments (unlike treaties), intended to set cooperative frameworks rather than create enforceable legal obligations.
Hosting the Culture Ministers' Meeting and Culture Festival in Bhopal during India's BRICS Chairship served as a soft-power and cultural-diplomacy exercise, using a non-binding declaration to advance India's creative-economy and copyright priorities within the grouping.
- The Bhopal meeting was the 11th (XI) BRICS Culture Ministers' Meeting; it was held on 8 August 2026 (concluding the Culture Working Group process that ran April-August 2026).
- 14 countries participated: 10 BRICS members and 4 partner countries.
- The BRICS Culture Festival ran 6-7 August 2026 in Bhopal, with performances from Belarus, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, and the UAE.
- BRICS expanded from 5 to 11 full members between January 2024 and January 2025 (adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Indonesia).