Xi courts Modi at BRICS summit, urges bloc's Middle East peace role

At the BRICS summit in India, two of the world's most consequential leaders — Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi — chose proximity over distance, using the gathering of developing economies as a stage for something older and harder than geopolitics: the attempt to rebuild trust between neighbors who have wounded each other. Modi's quiet insistence that border peace must precede any broader reconciliation reminded the world that grand diplomatic gestures rest on very human ground. Whether this careful choreography signals genuine thaw or merely a pause in a longer rivalry, it places BRICS at the cent