Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Tuesday, 2 June 2026 welcomed delegates from BRICS nations to Puri as the state prepares to host the Second Technical Meeting of the BRICS Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group from 3 to 5 June 2026. The event positions Odisha as a global reference point for disaster preparedness and community resilience on a multilateral stage.

Context

In his post, CM Majhi described the hosting of the meeting as 'a matter of great pride for Odisha', saying it 'reflects the growing global recognition of Odisha's leadership in disaster preparedness, resilience and effective disaster management.' He welcomed delegates to Puri, which he called 'the abode of Mahaprabhu Shri Jagannath,' and expressed confidence that the gathering would 'strengthen cooperation and advance global disaster resilience.'

The meeting comes under the #BRICSIndia2026 umbrella, with India holding the BRICS chairmanship in 2026. Hosting the technical working group in Puri is a deliberate choice: the coastal pilgrimage city sits on a stretch of the Bay of Bengal coastline that has been repeatedly battered by cyclones, making it a living demonstration of the challenges the meeting seeks to address.

Policy Backdrop

Odisha's credentials in disaster management are rooted in hard experience. The catastrophic 1999 super cyclone prompted the state to establish the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), institutionalising preparedness and building a response infrastructure that became a national template.

The state's handling of Cyclone Fani in May 2019 — when authorities evacuated roughly 12 lakh people in under 48 hours with near-zero fatalities — drew international acclaim from bodies including the United Nations and the World Bank, which cited it as a model for mass-evacuation management. That track record is the substantive basis for Odisha's prominence in the BRICS Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group discussions.

Stakeholders and Impact

The BRICS Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group brings together technical experts from member states to share methodologies on early warning systems, community-level resilience, and post-disaster recovery. For Odisha's coastal communities — who live with annual cyclone and flood risk — the meeting offers a channel to feed ground-level operational knowledge into multilateral policy frameworks.

More broadly, the Puri meeting illustrates a widening of the BRICS agenda beyond economics into non-traditional security domains such as climate resilience and disaster governance. Indian sub-national governments with proven operational expertise are increasingly contributing technical content to these global conversations, giving states like Odisha a visibility that extends well beyond their domestic mandate.

What's Next

The outcomes of the 3–5 June technical meeting are expected to feed into the broader BRICS summit process under India's 2026 chairmanship. Observers will watch for any follow-up commitments on early-warning system interoperability or capacity-building programmes that member states may agree to carry forward. For CM Majhi, a successful hosting will reinforce Odisha's standing as a model state in disaster governance — a credential that carries weight both at home and in India's multilateral diplomacy.