Latin American leaders keen to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narender Modi's first major international engagement is the sixth BRICS Summit to be held at Fortaleza and Brasilia on July 14 and 15, followed by a meeting of the BRICS leaders with 11 South American leaders including those from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay, Surinam and Venezuela at Brasilia on July 16.

Secretary (economic relations) in the ministry of external affairs Sujata Mehta said the two-day summit at Fortaleza will comprise a closed door meeting among the leaders followed by an open session. BRICS now enters the second cycle of summits with each of the member-countries having hosted the summit. The 2016 summit will be in Russia.

Mehta said the grouping is looking, from the Indian point of view, to reforms of the United Natons Security Council (UNSC), with three of the members, India, South Africa and Brazil, seeking to be permanent members of the Security Council, with Russia and China already permanent members. She said BRICS has huge potential as it represents 40% of the global population.

On the other hand, according to Brazil's ministry of external relations website about the summit, the agenda will consider "social inclusion and sustainable development."

Dinkar Khullar, secretary (West), said that the India-Brazil bilateral will include wide-ranging talks between prime minister Modi and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. He also said the Latin American leaders expressed their keenness to meet Modi.