*Discuss the role of India's Digital Public Infrastructure model in shaping multilateral agricultural cooperation.*

Q. Discuss the role of India's Digital Public Infrastructure model in shaping multilateral agricultural cooperation. (15 marks, 250 words)

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — interoperable, open, population-scale digital systems like Aadhaar, UPI and AgriStack — has become India's signature export in global governance. Its agri-DPI model now anchors BRICS farm cooperation, institutionalised through the Indore Declaration (June 2026) [1].

India's agri-DPI as an exportable template - AgriStack builds a farmer registry, geo-referenced land records and a unified stack channelling credit, advisory and subsidies. - The Digital Agriculture Mission mainstreams AI, geospatial technology and data-driven farming, creating a replicable, low-cost model attractive to the Global South.

Shaping BRICS multilateral cooperation - The 16th BRICS Agriculture Ministers' Meeting adopted innovation and technology in food systems as a priority pillar of the Indore Declaration [1]. - The new BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture — covering AI, geospatial tech and DPI, coordinated by IIT Delhi — effectively multilateralises India's stack across the expanded bloc [1]. - It leverages the BRICS Agricultural Research Platform (operationalised 2021, secretariat at ICAR-NASC, New Delhi), reframed as a "Knowledge-to-Action" hub to convert R&D into field practice [2].

Strategic significance and challenges - Positions India as a Global South food-security diplomacy leader, projecting DPI as a shared digital public good. - Concerns persist over data privacy and sovereignty, the digital divide among smallholders, and cross-country interoperability.

By moving BRICS from paper declarations to deliverable digital public goods, India's DPI reframes South-South agriculture around inclusion. Scaled with robust data-protection safeguards, it can advance SDG-2 on food security and remunerative farming.

(~250 words)

Sources: 1. India leads consensus as BRICS adopts historic Indore Declaration — PIB (2026) — Indore Declaration, innovation/technology pillar, BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture coordinated by IIT Delhi 2. BRICS Agricultural Research Platform operationalised — PIB (2021) — BRICS-ARP set up in India, secretariat at NASC Complex/ICAR, foundation for Knowledge-to-Action hub