India Today Group’s news brands are stepping further into the geopolitics-and-business summit space. Aaj Tak and India Today Global will host a BRICS Roundtable in New Delhi on 10 September 2026, a closed-format forum that brings ministers, diplomats, industry leaders, economists and policy thinkers into one room to debate where the BRICS grouping goes next.
The timing is deliberate. The Roundtable is scheduled just ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, positioning the property as a curtain-raiser conversation rather than a post-event recap — a useful editorial slot for any publisher that wants agenda-setting relevance.
What’s on the agenda
Instead of tracking the summit’s immediate diplomatic checklist, the organisers say the discussion will look at BRICS’ longer-term purpose: what the grouping’s next chapter looks like, and how it can contribute to a more resilient, inclusive and multipolar global order. The stated ambition is to move the conversation from broad dialogue towards practical, results-oriented cooperation, and to identify how shared interests can translate into measurable economic, strategic and developmental outcomes.
The speaker line-up
The billed speakers span government, diplomacy, industry and academia:
- Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of Iran, on the fault lines shaping the emerging global order.
- Anant Goenka, Vice Chairman, RPG Group and President, FICCI, on business strategy amid geopolitical conflict and economic uncertainty.
- Ram Madhav, National Vice President, BJP, on India’s perspective on the evolving BRICS order.
- H.E. M. Riaz Hamidullah, High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India, on the BRICS–BIMSTEC intersection, and H.E. Prof. Anil Sooklal, South African High Commissioner to India, on Africa’s growing role within BRICS.
- Salman Khurshid, former External Affairs Minister, on BRICS’ potential to bridge political divides.
- C. P. Gurnani, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman, AIonOS, on artificial intelligence as a transformative force.
- Rahul Mithal, CMD, RITES, on emerging connectivity corridors.
The business case for BRICS will be argued by Kalpana Ajayan (Regional Head, South Asia, Women’s World Banking), Manpreet Singh (President, Indian Chamber of International Business) and Sachin Ahuja (CEO, Alfeco Holdings Group). A separate strand on doing business in sanctioned economies features Vijay K. Mishra (Chairman, India-China Technology Transfer Centre and Executive Vice Chairman, India China Trade Centre), Sammy Manoj Kotwani (President, Indian Business Alliance) and industrialist Jamil Saidi. Former diplomats Ashok Kantha and Sanjay Bhattacharyya will discuss BRICS’ role in shaping a new world order, while Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, former Rajya Sabha member, and Muktesh Pardeshi, former Indian Ambassador to Türkiye, will take up people-to-people connectivity.
Why it matters for marketers
Beyond the policy content, this is a case study in how legacy news brands are monetising authority. Owned events have become a core revenue and influence line for Indian media houses, sitting alongside advertising and subscriptions. A geopolitics roundtable is low-volume by audience count but extremely high-value by audience quality — ministers, high commissioners, chamber presidents and CEOs are exactly the profile that B2B, infrastructure, financial services and technology sponsors want proximity to.
For brand and communications teams, the practical takeaway is about calendar strategy. Summit-adjacent programming works because relevance peaks around a fixed news event. If you sponsor or speak at one of these, the checklist is straightforward:
- Pick the moment, not the venue. Value comes from being early in the news cycle, not from stage size.
- Match the theme. AI, connectivity corridors, trade under sanctions and inclusive finance are the live threads here; a generic brand film will fall flat.
- Plan the content harvest. Panel clips, quote cards and a post-event point of view usually outperform the event itself in reach.
- Measure conversations, not impressions. Qualified meetings and follow-on media pickup are the real KPIs for forums like this.
Expect more of this format through 2026 as Indian publishers compete to own the intersection of policy, business and audience trust.
Source: MediaNews4U
