WASHINGTON — Narendra Modi did one thing very uncommon on Thursday on the White House – he took questions from journalists.
It’s a uncommon incidence for the Indian prime minister who avoids unscripted moments and has presided over a gentle decline in press freedom in his nation.
The information convention was extra restricted than the sort that U.S. presidents often maintain with overseas leaders, however even that wasn’t simple to rearrange with Modi. Indian officers agreed to the occasion solely the day earlier than, based on an individual aware of the matter who requested anonymity to debate the delicate negotiations.
Administration officers advised Modi’s advisers that taking questions from the media was a regular a part of how White House state visits are performed, the individual stated.
An Indian reporter requested about addressing local weather change, and an American reporter pressed Modi on human rights concerns- a very delicate matter because the United States seeks nearer ties with India as a bulwark in opposition to China’s affect within the area.
Modi defended India by saying “democracy runs in our veins” and insisting that there’s ”completely no house for discrimination.”
Although Modi, who’s 72, has granted sporadic interviews since changing into India’s chief 9 years in the past, he has by no means held a solo press convention. Sometimes when requested questions he’ll defer to others on stage with him.
Modi additionally tends to maintain reporters at a distance throughout abroad journeys, reminiscent of final 12 months in Germany, when the 2 international locations introduced a clear vitality deal.
The Indian delegation had insisted then that no press convention be held, based on a German official, who spoke solely on situation of anonymity.
However, Modi has loosened up a bit within the firm of American counterparts.
Eight years in the past, when President Barack Obama visited India, Modi answered questions from two reporters, together with one from The Associated Press.
Modi is lively on social media the place lots of of hundreds of thousands comply with him, hosts a month-to-month radio program the place he straight connects with listeners, and sometimes makes huge speeches. He makes use of these platforms to focus on authorities applications, inaugurate infrastructure tasks and categorical condolences when an accident or tragedy strikes.
But Modi has usually remained silent on polarizing incidents, together with when non secular minorities have confronted assaults by Hindu nationalists. He has additionally not commented on present ethnic violence roiling India’s distant northeast, the place a minimum of 100 individuals have died since May.
“His silences are legendary – he has never asked people to refrain from sectarian violence,” stated Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, writer of a Modi biography.
He urged that Modi mustn’t get a lot credit score for any press convention in Washington if only some questions have been allowed.
Modi’s motion, Mukhopadhyay stated, “allows him to project an image as a more reasonable and democratic leader abroad, while he continues to evade press conferences at home, where he has scant regard for press freedom.”
The decline in press freedom didn’t begin with Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, but it surely’s elevated. The nation fell eleven locations, to 160 out of 180 international locations, on this 12 months’s Press Freedom Index revealed by Reporters Without Borders.
The group cited violence in opposition to journalists and a partisan media panorama as causes that “press freedom is in crisis in the world’s largest democracy.”
“With an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year, India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for media,” the report stated.
India’s overseas minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, dismissed the report’s claims at an occasion final month.
In latest years, journalists have been arrested and a few are stopped from touring overseas. Dozens are going through felony prosecution, together with for sedition. At the identical time, the federal government has launched sweeping regulatory legal guidelines for social media corporations that give it extra energy to police on-line content material.
A variety of media retailers crucial of Modi have additionally been subjected to tax searches, most lately the BBC after it aired a documentary that examined the prime minister’s position in 2002 anti-Muslim riots within the western state of Gujarat, the place he was chief minister on the time.
More than 1,000 individuals have been killed within the violence. Modi has denied allegations that authorities underneath his watch allowed and even inspired the bloodshed, and India’s Supreme Court stated it discovered no proof to prosecute him.
The two-part BBC program drew a direct backlash from the Indian authorities, which invoked emergency powers underneath its data know-how legal guidelines to dam it from being proven within the nation. Social media platforms together with Twitter and YouTube additionally complied with authorities requests to take away hyperlinks to the documentary.
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Pathi reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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