appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Khushboo Razdan

I grew up in Delhi. Not Lutyens’ Delhi, that quieter, greener stretch of tree-lined avenues and high-walled colonial bungalows where the VIPs live. But close enough to know that two cities share one name.
One Delhi is generally messy. Rubbish piled into small mountains by the roadside. No footpaths to walk on. Narrow streets marked as one way, with every kind of traffic coming at you from every direction, and then simply stuck.
And the dust. Not a film on the windowsill, but something you breathe. It hangs in the heat, gets into your throat, burns your eyes and sets off the sneezing before breakfast.
The other is the Delhi that gets dressed when the world comes to dinner.
Last week, that second Delhi was out in full.
The 18th Brics summit was historic: 20 years of the grouping, 11 members, and the Bharat Mandapam convention centre rising on the old Pragati Maidan exhibition grounds I remember from school holiday fairs.

The capital had been prepared like a house before company. Banners on the flyovers. Flags. Faces. The theme in many languages, including simplified Chinese: building for resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability.
Buildings were lit up. The venue itself, glass and steel now, stood on the same earth where we once queued for the annual trade fair.
For a few days, the city looked as if it had been dry-cleaned for the occasion. It had.
That dressing had a cost, which fell unevenly. Ordinary people waited for hours while VVIP motorcades used the wide roads of the clean city. Janpath, Shanti Path, Mathura Road: names from childhood, now corridors of barricades.
Delhi Police said the city was not shut, only regulated. From a wet pavement, regulation still means standing still. Lutyens stayed Lutyens. The rest of us learned, again, which Delhi the cameras were meant to see.
Inside Bharat Mandapam, the day belonged to the summit.
The international media centre was buzzing with action. But the Wi-fi did not work at all. In a room built to file to the world, phones became hotspots. The copy still went out. What did work, without pause, was the food: free-flowing, plentiful and entirely vegetarian.
Most Indians are not vegetarian. Some 60 to 80 per cent eat meat. Still, the old instinct held: a guest must not go hungry.
Indian coverage was buoyant, and not without reason. After a year of fractures inside the bloc, leaders adopted a unanimous New Delhi Declaration. It named the April 2025 Pahalgam attack in India-administered Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. It also pushed for United Nations reform and gave the Global South a voice in one long careful document.

Leaders stood on the lawns in a light September rain, planting banyan saplings. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in India for the first time in seven years. His meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was read as a thaw: partners, not rivals; differences that should not become disputes; peace on the disputed Himalayan border as the ground on which everything else might stand.
What stayed with me was the floor of the media centre. Chinese and Indian crews were not only working side by side. Presenters and commentators from China’s state broadcaster also appeared on India’s national broadcaster DD News and wire service ANI, where they were interviewed repeatedly, saying warm things about the visit and the venue.
My Chinese friends were surprised. I was too. For a few hours, the hall felt like a ceasefire you could hear, not in the communique, but in the chatter.
Then the day ended. Media had been promised shuttles from a fixed point to the venue. In the mornings, it worked. We were collected there and taken in. At night, the return buses did not come.
Colleagues waited for hours at Bharat Mandapam then walked, then met roadblocks. About 40 of us, with kits, cameras and live units, were packed into a Delhi Police van that was never built for that many people.
Most of us stood – packed like chickens in a cage. It took more than 40 minutes in the sticky heat and dust-filled air before they dropped us at the same point from which we had been collected that morning.
From there I found a cab. Roads were blocked again. Another hour and a half to the hotel. My driver made a point of getting me there safely.
Still, I was content. India had done a good job of hosting world leaders and clinching a big diplomatic win on the global stage. And for a few hours, it had felt like a good day for China and India’s ties too.
It did not last the week.

By Wednesday, Islamabad and Beijing were holding the first meeting of a Pakistan-China Boundary Joint Commission, a body that touches on territory India says Pakistan illegally occupied and then ceded to China in 1963.
New Delhi rejected it at once: no legal basis and no Pakistan-China boundary over land that India still claims.
On Indian channels, the warmth of Saturday had cooled. That, too, is this neighbourhood. A handshake in Bharat Mandapam and a map in Islamabad can occupy the same week. I keep both pictures.
Similarly, both Delhis are real. The Delhi of barricades and motorcades. The Delhi of dust, traffic and dead Wi-fi. The Delhi that can frustrate you before breakfast and feed hundreds of foreign guests without a second thought. The Delhi that can spend weeks arguing with itself and then, when the world arrives, somehow make room.
This is the city that raised me. For one historic weekend, it stood up straighter, opened its doors and reminded me why leaving never quite means leaving.


Reporter’s note: two Delhis, one weekend – when the world came to dinner

Anwar was on song in India. Will Malaysia reap the rewards?

What China really means when it says it’s being ‘strategic’

Trump signs bill targeting China’s Russia energy imports days before Xi’s US visit

Brics

Bharat Mandapam, venue for the 18th Brics summit hosted by India last weekend, bedecked with banners for the event. Photo: Reuters

The Brics 2026 international media centre was buzzing with action. Photo: Khushboo Razdan

Li Jingjing (left) from China’s CGTN and the South China Morning Post’s Khushboo Razdan inside the international media centre at the Brics summit. Photo: SCMP

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping at the Brics summit in New Delhi on September 12. Photo: AFP

Brics leaders act to hedge – not revolt – against US dollar dominance

Attending an exhibition during the Brics summit are (from left) Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in New Delhi, India, on September 12. Photo: Handout

Will ‘transactional’ America assist India in a future border crisis with China?

Chinese President Xi Jinping with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Brics summit venue in New Delhi on September 12. Photo: via Reuters

Commemorations take place on the second anniversary of the Galwan Valley clash with India in 2022. Photo: Weibo

China trusted more than US, EU on AI regulation in Pew survey of middle-income countries

A Pew survey found that China leads the US and the European Union in trust in AI regulation among mostly middle-income countries. Photo: Shutterstock

A new Pew Research Centre report found that, on a median basis across 11 countries and two territories, more people trust China than the US or the EU to regulate AI effectively. For polling purposes, Pew treats the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a country. Photo: Handout

China pushes back against US sanctions bill targeting Russia’s top energy buyers

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun says Beijing “opposes long-arm jurisdiction that has no basis in international law or the authorisation of the UN Security Council”. Photo: Kyodo

The late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham championed the legislation, which authorises US President Donald Trump to impose up to 100 per cent tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian oil and natural gas. Photo: AP

Gregory Meeks, a Democratic representative from New York, opposes the Russia sanctions bill.  Photo: Reuters

News

China

Diplomacy

The Indian capital was prepared for the 18th Brics summit like a house before company, if at times the cost of its finery fell unevenly


The Indian capital was prepared for the 18th Brics summit like a house before company, if at times the cost of its finery fell unevenly.


Pakistan

India

Xi Jinping

Narendra Modi

United Nations

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Reporter’s note: two Delhis, one weekend – when the world came to dinner

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Indian capital was prepared for the 18th Brics summit like a house before company, if at times the cost of its finery fell unevenly

The Indian capital was prepared for the 18th Brics summit like a house before company, if at times the cost of its finery fell unevenly