With New Delhi turning into a diplomatic hub ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold separate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, while a much-anticipated bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled for Saturday.Modi will meet Putin at 3.30 pm and Pezeshkian at 6.15 pm at Bharat Mandapam, the venue for the September 12-13 BRICS Summit. He will also meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at 6.45 pm.The Modi-Putin meeting comes as India continues to deepen its longstanding strategic partnership with Moscow amid the Russia-Ukraine war and growing Western pressure over New Delhi’s ties with Russia.For Modi, the BRICS gathering provides an opportunity to engage Putin in person even as India maintains its position of calling for dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the conflict.The meeting with Pezeshkian assumes significance against the backdrop of continuing turmoil in West Asia.Iran, which joined the expanded BRICS grouping last year, is among the key players whose presence underlines the increasingly broad geopolitical footprint of the grouping.But it is Modi’s meeting with Xi on Saturday that is expected to draw the greatest attention. Scheduled for 5.45 pm at Bharat Mandapam, the meeting will be Xi’s first visit to India in seven years and comes after a period of strain in bilateral ties following the 2020 military standoff along the Line of Actual Control.The meeting follows signs of a thaw in India-China relations, with both sides taking steps to stabilise ties after years of tensions along the border.The BRICS Summit will provide Modi and Xi another opportunity for direct engagement.The bilateral meetings are taking place against the backdrop of an expanded BRICS, which now comprises 11 members — Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, Indonesia and India.The expansion has given the grouping greater economic and geopolitical weight but has also brought together countries with divergent strategic interests and positions on major global conflicts.India has sought to position BRICS as a platform for cooperation among developing countries and a stronger voice for the Global South, rather than as an anti-Western bloc.Alongside the summit, Modi is scheduled to hold a string of bilateral meetings with leaders from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.On Saturday, he will meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali at 10 am, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at 10.30 am, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, at 11 am, all at Hyderabad House.At 11.30 am, Modi will meet Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung. At the same time, President Droupadi Murmu is scheduled to hold a separate meeting with Pezeshkian at Rashtrapati Bhavan.On Jattvibeday, Modi will meet Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.He will also hold meetings with Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Nigerian Vice-President Kashim Shettima and Ugandan Vice-President Jessica Alupo.The unusually dense schedule underscores the diplomatic significance of the BRICS Summit for India, with the capital set to host leaders representing competing geopolitical interests even as New Delhi seeks to use the gathering to advance its economic, strategic and Global South priorities.