Modi | Pakistan

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “significantly” cut the size of his motorcade to save fuel, a government source said on Wednesday, days after Modi urged citizens to tighten their belts amid a surge in energy prices triggered by the Iran war. Modi appealed to people on Sunday to adopt austerity measures, including avoiding unnecessary foreign travel, using public transport, reducing gold purchases and cutting their use of cooking oil, as soaring global energy prices put pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Following the appeal, some critics on social media questioned the large motorcades of senior Indian politicians, Modi’s domestic flights and his upcoming Europe visit on his official aircraft. The number of vehicles in Modi’s motorcade was reduced while ensuring essential security components, in line with the protocol of the Special Protection Group that guards the prime minister, the source said, without specifying the motorcade’s actual size. Modi gets the highest level of personal ...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark this week on a multi-nation tour to the United Arab Emirates and four European countries, officials said on Monday. Modi will start his whirlwind tour from the UAE — where a 4.5 million-strong Indian community lives — on Friday, India’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Modi will meet with the UAE’s leader, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with energy cooperation high on the agenda amid global supply disruptions caused by the Middle East war. “The visit will serve to promote the significant trade and investment linkages between the two countries,” the statement said. The premier will then travel to the Netherlands between May 15 and 17 on his second visit there since 2017, with defence, semiconductors and “a strategic partnership on water” between the two countries on the agenda. Modi’s visit “early in the tenure of the new government will provide an opportunity to further deepen and expand” India’s partnership with the Dutch, the ministry said. Bilateral...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged the people of to cut down on petrol and diesel consumption amid supply disruptions due to the Middle East war. India is one of the few countries in the region that has not increased the prices of petrol and diesel for domestic consumers or rationed supplies. But it has increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — a primary cooking fuel in this country — after disruptions following the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which led to Iran’s near-total blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. “We have to reduce our use of petrol and diesel. In cities with metro lines, we should try to travel by metro … If we must use a car, then we should try to car pool,” he said, addressing a gathering in southern Telangana state. He added that restrictions on use were also necessary to save foreign currency spent on fuel imports. “We must also place a strong emphasis on saving foreign exchange, as petrol and diesel have become so expensive globally.” Modi also urged peopl...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed a “record” victory on Monday in key elections in opposition-held West Bengal state after official trends and partial results showed a thumping majority for his Hindu nationalist party. Votes were still being counted under tight security in the state of more than 100 million people, one of five states and territories that held elections in April and May where results were also being announced on Monday. The results should put Modi on a stronger footing while he battles a series of economic and foreign policy challenges, including high unemployment rates and a pending US trade deal, ahead of a general election in 2029. In keenly fought West Bengal, where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never won before, the party was leading in 156 of the 293 seats and had won 48 others, according to the Election Commission of India. “The 2026 West Bengal Assembly Elections will be remembered forever,” Modi said on social media. “People’s power has prevailed and BJP’s politics...

MUMBAI: The fundamentals of the Indian economy are strong and the country has adequate availability of petroleum, fertilisers and coal to weather trade and energy disruptions caused by the US-Israel war on Iran, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told parliament’s lower house on Monday. The conflict, which began last month, has disrupted sectors from air travel to shipping and gas supplies, including by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a conduit for 40 per cent of India’s crude oil imports. His statements comes as the Indian rupee fell to a record low of 93.84 against the US Dollar, eclipsing its previous low of 93.7350 hit on Friday. The rupee, among the currencies most exposed to sustained oil price increases, has weakened about 3pc on the back of the escalating conflict, stoking worries over sustained disruption of energy supplies, threatening the outlook for Asia’s third-largest economy. Modi told the Lower House of Parliament that India has sufficient petroleum availability, wit...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Assam on Friday, announcing multi-billion-dollar investments as part of a tour of states heading into elections, including the key political battleground of West Bengal. The Hindu nationalist leader launched infrastructure projects in Assam — including land holdings to tea plantation workers, a dam project and a major train and road corridor — worth over $5 billion. The northeastern state of about 32 million people is controlled by his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Saturday, Modi will visit neighbouring West Bengal, a state of 105 million people led by his political rival Mamata Banerjee, of the All India Trinamool Congress party. During the visit, he is expected to inaugurate “road infrastructure, railways, port and shipping” projects worth roughly $2 billion, which his office says are aimed at “accelerating economic growth”. State elections this year will be held in the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, both under opposition parties, as well ...

India will soon give final shape to a mutually beneficial free trade agreement with Israel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. The two countries will also pursue joint development, production, and transfer of technology in defence, Modi said at the end of his two-day trip aimed at strengthening ties with Israel. Modi said Tel Aviv and New Delhi agreed there was “no place for terrorism in the world”. “India and Israel are clear that there is no place for terrorism in the world, in any form… We will oppose it shoulder to shoulder. We will always oppose it in the future,” Modi said at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “Humanity must never become a victim of conflict,” he added. Following their meeting, Netanyahu’s office said the “two leaders will sign a series of agreements between Israel and India in economic, security, and diplomatic fields”. Separately, Modi said he and Israeli President Isaac Herzog held “extremely fruitful and wide-ranging” t...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told lawmakers in Jerusalem on Wednesday that India stands “firmly” with Israel following Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. Modi also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a two-day visit aimed at deepening trade and defence ties that has drawn criticism at home. “I … carry with me the deepest condolences of the people of India for every life lost and for every family whose world was shattered in the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7,” Modi said in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. “We feel your pain, we share your grief. India stands with Israel firmly with full conviction in this moment and beyond.” In his speech, Modi did not explicitly mention the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the more than two-year-long Israeli onslaught. But he said that India “supports all efforts that contribute to durable peace and regional stability”. Modi also told Israeli lawmakers that his country’s economic growth and Israel’s leadership...

The Israeli opposition has planned to boycott the address of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Knesset during his visit to the country, top Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday. The Indian prime minister will visit Israel from February 25 to 26, India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. It will be Modi’s second visit to Israel. According to the report, the opposition — led by Yair Lapid — is in a “standoff” with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana due to his decision not to invite the Israeli Supreme Court President Isaac Amit to attend a special session of the parliament “as is customary”. The report said that Lapid on Monday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure Amit’s invitation. According to Haaretz, Lapid, in a post on X, said: “We want to be in the session, we need to be in the session. Prime Minister Netanyahu must instruct Ohana to allow us to participate in the session.” As per the report, Lapid, while speaking in the Knesset last week, warned that “boycotting Justice Amit is...

India and Brazil agreed to boost cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after talks in New Delhi with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “The agreement on critical minerals and rare earths [is] a major step towards building resilient supply chains,” Modi said. Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of critical minerals, which are used in everything from electric vehicles, solar panels and smartphones to jet engines and guided missiles. India, seeking to cut its dependence on top exporter China, has been expanding domestic production and recycling while scouting for new suppliers. “Increasing investments and cooperation in matters of renewable energies and critical minerals is at the core of the pioneering agreement that we have signed today,” Lula said. The details of the deal were not immediately available. Nine other agreements and memoranda of understanding were finalised on Saturday, the foreign ministry’s spokesman said, touchin...

United States President Donald Trump announced a “trade deal” with India on Monday after speaking to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying New Delhi agreed to stop buying Russian oil and may purchase it instead from Venezuela. In a post on social media platform Truth Social, the US president said that he and the Indian premier spoke about “many things”, including trade and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump added that “out of friendship and respect” for Modi, the US would lower its reciprocal tariff rate from 25 per cent to 18pc, while India would reduce tariffs on US goods to zero. “He (Modi) agreed to stop buying Russian oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela,” Trump wrote, adding that this would “end the war” between Russia and Ukraine. The US president, calling Modi “one of my greatest friends, and a powerful and respected leader of his country”, said that he agreed to “buy American” at a much higher level. Trump added that India would buy, “over $500 bi...

India’s trade pact with the United States was delayed because Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not make a telephone call to US President Donald Trump to close a deal they were negotiating, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday. The trade talks fell apart last year and Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods in August to 50 per cent, the world’s highest rate, including a levy of 25pc in retaliation for India’s purchases of Russian oil. “It’s all set up and you have got to have Modi call the president. And they were uncomfortable doing it,” Lutnick said in an interview on the All-In podcast, a US show by four venture capitalists that focuses on business and technology. “So Modi didn’t call.” The comments came after Trump stepped up the pressure for talks with a warning this week that tariffs could rise further unless India curbs its Russian oil imports. That step pushed the Indian rupee to a record low and spooked investors waiting for progress in two-way negotiations for a trade deal that remains elus...

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday jibed at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi while recounting a meeting between the two, where the Indian PM had asked to meet the US president. While addressing the House GOP (Grand Old Party) Members’ Retreat, Trump recounted a meeting with Modi, stating that Modi had ordered 68 Apache attack helicopters from the US and had waited five years. “Prime Minister Modi came to see me. [He said] ‘Sir, may I see you, please?’ Yes,” Trump recalled. “I have a very good relationship with him. He’s not that happy with me because, you know, they’re paying a lot of tariffs now, because they’re not doing the oil,” he added, referring to India halting imports of Russian oil. Trump also noted that the US is “getting rich because of tariffs”. Meanwhile, India’s opposition Congress party took to X and uploaded a caricature of the scene, showing a timid Modi. In a separate post in Hindi, Congress claimed that Modi went to the US uninvited to meet Trump after he took office last January, q...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he spoke with US President Donald Trump by phone on Thursday, as New Delhi seeks relief from 50 per cent US tariffs on some of the country’s key exports to punish India for its Russian oil purchases. “We reviewed the progress in our bilateral relations and discussed regional and international developments,” Modi said in a post on X. A White House official confirmed the call took place, but gave no details about what was discussed. Modi and Trump have spoken three times since Trump doubled tariffs on imports from India to as much as 50pc, hitting exports of textiles, chemicals and food items such as shrimp. Modi described his conversation with Trump as “warm and engaging” and said their countries would continue to work together for global peace, stability and prosperity. Trade negotiations between the two sides collapsed in late July, after India resisted opening its market for US farm products and declined to acknowledge Trump’s role in mediating during a conflict betw...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began summit talks in New Delhi on Friday, as New Delhi rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader and Modi told him India supported peace efforts in Ukraine. Putin is on his first visit to India in four years, aiming to boost trade with the top buyer of Russia’s arms and seaborne oil as Western sanctions squeeze their decades-old ties. The visit comes at a time when New Delhi is engaged in talks with the US for a trade deal to cut punitive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on its goods over India’s Russian oil purchases. Moscow has been India’s top arms supplier for decades and has said that it wants to import more Indian goods in an effort to grow trade to $100 billion by 2030, which so far has been skewed in its favour due to New Delhi’s energy imports. Since European countries cut their reliance on Russian energy after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago, India ramped up its purchases of discounted Russian crud...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was earlier reported to have skipped out on attending an Asean summit to avoid broaching the issue of Pakistan in a possible meeting with United States President Donald Trump, will be attending the G20 summit in South Africa which has been boycotted by the American leader. The Kolkata-based Telegraph reported that Modi had avoided the last two multilateral platforms where the US President was present — the Asean summit in Malaysia and Trump’s Gaza Peace Summit in Egypt — “resulting in speculation that the prime minister was trying to avoid a meeting with the American leader till the India-US trade deal is finalised”. Trump’s administration has said it will not attend the first G20 summit in Africa, alleging that the host country, previously ruled by its white minority apartheid system until 1994, discriminates against white people. The US president has also rejected South Africa’s agenda for the November 22-23 summit of promoting solidarity and helping developing natio...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hailed a “resounding” victory for his party and its allies in a key local election in the country’s poorest state of Bihar. The eastern state of 130 million people was widely seen as a bellwether and a test of Modi’s ability to translate New Delhi’s booming economy into gains for its poorest citizens. Counting is still ongoing and the final tally may not be out until Saturday, but the election commission said partial results and projections suggested a solid majority for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in the state assembly. Modi called the win a “victory of good governance”. “This resounding public mandate will empower us to serve the people and work with new resolve for Bihar,” he said in a post on social media. Bihar is the only state in the Hindi-speaking north where Modi’s party has never ruled alone. This time too, it is unlikely to secure a majority by itself but appears set to emerge as the single largest party ahead of...

Indian police are investigating a deadly car blast in New Delhi under a law used to fight “terrorism”, an officer said on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to bring to justice all those responsible. The explosion near the historic Red Fort on Monday evening killed at least eight people and injured 20. It was the first such blast in the heavily guarded city of more than 30 million since 2011. “Today, I have come to Bhutan with a very heavy heart,” Modi said in Thimphu, the capital of the neighbouring Himalayan nation, as he arrived on Tuesday for a scheduled visit. “The horrific incident that happened in Delhi last evening has deeply disturbed everyone,” Modi told a public meeting. “Our agencies will get to the very bottom of this conspiracy. The conspirators behind this will not be spared. All those responsible will be brought to justice.” New Delhi’s deputy chief fire officer A.K. Malik told AFP shortly after the explosion that eight people had been killed. The Press Trust of India news agency r...

United States President Donald Trump speaks often with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trade teams from both countries continue to hold talks, the White House said on Tuesday. “The president and his trade team continue to be in very serious discussions with India,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “I know the president has great respect for Prime Minister Modi, and they speak pretty frequently.” Trump said last week in South Korea that he wanted to reach a trade deal with India — signalling a thaw in relations that soured to their lowest point in decades after the US president doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent as punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil. Indian refiners cut Russian oil imports after Washington imposed sanctions last week on Moscow’s top two crude exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil. Earlier this month, Trump claimed that Modi has agreed to cut Russian oil imports — something New Delhi has not commented on. A White House official said New Delhi h...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi skipped out on attending an Asean summit in Malaysia to avoid broaching the issue of Pakistan in a possible meeting with United States President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Modi had backtracked from his proposed visit to Malaysia over the weekend to attend an Asean summit and opted to join the discussions “virtually” instead. The opposition Congress party had blamed the change of plan on Modi’s fear of meeting Trump. The annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation grouping, as well as associated meetings, was held from Oct 26 to 28 in Kuala Lumpur. “Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed away from a regional leaders summit in Malaysia this week to avoid meeting US President Donald Trump and having a possible discussion about Pakistan,” people familiar with the matter said. “Officials in the government were apprehensive that Trump would repeat his claim that he mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day ...