MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 95 of 100

Correct — option (3), 'Only (a), (b), (e)'. Brazil took the BRICS chairship for 2025 under the motto 'Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance', and announced six priority areas: cooperation in global health; trade, investment and finance; climate change; the governance of artificial intelligence; the multilateral peace and security architecture; and the institutional development of BRICS itself. The seventeenth summit under that chairship was held at Rio de Janeiro in July 2025. Measure the stem's five statements against that list. Statement (a), global health cooperation, is the first named priority. Statement (b), climate change, is on the list, and was given particular prominence in a year when Brazil was also preparing to host the United Nations climate conference. Statement (e), trade, investment and finance, is on the list too — it is the heading under which the chairship pursued local-currency payment instruments and trade facilitation among members. Those three stand. Statement (c), the promotion of women's emancipation, does not appear among the six announced priorities. That does not mean BRICS ignores the subject — the grouping runs ministerial and working-group tracks on many themes — but the question asks specifically about the flagship priorities of the 2025 chairship, and this is not one of them. Statement (d) is the most contestable item on the page, and it deserves an honest word. One of the six announced priorities does concern the multilateral order — the peace and security architecture — and a sixth concerns the institutional development of BRICS. The stem's bare phrase 'Reform of the Multilateral System' drops the qualifier that makes the announced priority specific, and the Commission's final key does not credit it. That key is the authority. But notice that you never have to decide statement (d) at all. Two judgements settle the question: statement (a) is certainly on the list, and statement (c) is certainly not. Option (1) contains (c), so it goes. Option (4) contains (c), so it goes. Option (2) omits (a), so it goes. Only option (3) both includes (a) and excludes (c), and it is the answer. When a statement set contains one item you are sure belongs and one you are sure does not, test the options against that pair first — it very often reduces four choices to one.

• (1)Only (a), (c), (d) — This admits global health cooperation, which is right, but also admits the promotion of women's emancipation, which is not among the six announced priorities, and it discards trade, investment and finance, which is. Two errors in one option. It is the choice of a candidate who reads the priority list as a general statement of good intentions rather than as a specific published set of six headings.
• (2)Only (b), (d), (e) — This keeps climate change and trade, investment and finance — both correct — but drops global health cooperation, which is the first of the six announced priorities and the one Brazil pushed hardest, arguing for greater investment in the research and production of medicines and vaccines. An option that rejects the lead priority cannot be right, whatever else it gets correct.
• (4)All of the above — 'All of the above' is offered eleven times in this booklet, and the rule for it is fixed: it survives only when every named item survives, and fails the moment one does not. Here the promotion of women's emancipation is not among the six announced priorities of the 2025 chairship, so the blanket option falls on statement (c) alone — before any argument about the wording of statement (d) even begins.

BRICS rotates its chairship annually, and each chair publishes a motto and a small set of priority areas that shape the year's ministerial meetings, working groups and summit declaration. Those priorities are the examinable content, because they are announced, listed and dated. Brazil chaired in 2025 under the motto 'Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance', organising the year around two overarching themes — cooperation among countries of the Global South, and BRICS partnerships for social, economic and environmental development — and six concrete priorities: global health cooperation; trade, investment and finance; climate change; the governance of artificial intelligence; the multilateral peace and security architecture; and the institutional development of the grouping. Over a hundred ministerial and technical meetings were held through the year, culminating in the seventeenth summit at Rio de Janeiro in July 2025.

The grouping itself has changed shape rapidly, which is why chairship priorities are worth tracking. The acronym began as an investment-bank label for Brazil, Russia, India and China before it became a diplomatic forum, the first leaders' summit being held in 2009 and South Africa joining the following year to make BRICS. Membership was expanded from January 2024, bringing in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates among others, and Indonesia joined as a full member in January 2025, during Brazil's chairship. The grouping's institutional creations — the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement — are the standing subjects of examination alongside the annual priorities. India holds the BRICS chairship for 2026, which makes the sequence of recent chairs and their themes an unusually likely area for both national and State examiners.

• Brazil chaired BRICS in 2025 under the motto 'Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance'
• Its six announced priorities were global health cooperation; trade, investment and finance; climate change; governance of artificial intelligence; the multilateral peace and security architecture; and the institutional development of BRICS
• The seventeenth BRICS summit was held at Rio de Janeiro in July 2025, after more than a hundred ministerial and technical meetings through the year
• BRICS membership was expanded from January 2024, and Indonesia joined as a full member in January 2025 during Brazil's chairship
• The grouping's institutions are the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement; India holds the chairship for 2026

• Treating a plausible good cause as an announced priority. Women's empowerment, education and food security are all things BRICS discusses, but the question asks for the published flagship priorities of one chairship, which is a closed list
• Accepting a truncated phrase as equivalent to the official one. 'Reform of the multilateral system' is not the same published heading as the multilateral peace and security architecture, and examiners key such abbreviations strictly
• Forgetting to look for the decisive pair. One item you are certain belongs plus one you are certain does not will usually eliminate three of four options without any further work

Multilateral groupings — BRICS, the G20, SCO, QUAD, ASEAN — are examined every year through the same three questions: who holds the chair or presidency, where the summit was held, and what the theme or priorities were. State PSC papers favour the priority-list format because it can be set directly from the chair's published agenda. The efficient preparation is a single line per grouping per year: chair, motto or theme, summit city and date, and any new member admitted. That line answers every version of the question.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 17th BRICS Summit, held under Brazil's chairship in 2025, took place in which city ?

  • (a)Brasilia
  • (b)Rio de Janeiro
  • (c)Sao Paulo
  • (d)Salvador

  Answer(b) Rio de Janeiro — the summit was held there in July 2025, closing a chairship year that ran under the motto 'Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance'.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which country joined BRICS as a full member in January 2025 ?

  • (a)Indonesia
  • (b)Nigeria
  • (c)Argentina
  • (d)Turkey

  Answer(a) Indonesia — it became a full member in January 2025, during Brazil's chairship. This followed the expansion from January 2024 that brought in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates among others.