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Observers say the visit reflects both nations’ eagerness to build tighter alliances as they seek to deter China’s growing assertiveness in the region.

Darrelle Ng

SYDNEY: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up his three-day visit to Australia on Wednesday (May 24), following a rock star reception and new agreements on migration and green hydrogen.

Observers said the visit comes as the two nations seek to forge closer relations in the face of rising tensions in the region.

Mr Modi and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese discussed economic ties and security cooperation, as well as the impact of Russia’s war with Ukraine on developing countries.

The prime ministers announced a new migration agreement that aims to “promote the two-way mobility of students, graduates, academic researchers and business people”.

Analysts said employers coping with labour shortage in Australia and Indian youth seeking opportunities abroad will welcome the deal.

“The two countries are trying to strengthen their trade and investment relations, and further grow their business ties. Hence, easier travel between the two nations is definitely a plus,” University of Mary Washington’s Political Science and International Affairs Professor Surupa Gupta told CNA’s Asia First on Thursday.

The two sides also established a green hydrogen task force to expand collaboration on clean energy, and discussed increasing cooperation on mining and critical minerals.

They are also working towards a comprehensive economic cooperation deal, for which they hope to complete negotiations by the end of the year. Bilateral trade between India and Australia is expected to double to about US$50 billion by 2035.

Mr Modi also said that he raised the topic of a series of attacks on Hindu temples in Australia, to which Mr Albanese assured strict action would be taken.

The Indian leader’s visit was originally planned for a summit for leaders from the Quad group of nations, which along with Japan and the United States, is seen as an alliance working to counter China’s rising influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

However, talks between the grouping were held on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit last weekend in Tokyo instead, as US President Joe Biden had to return to Washington to deal with a debt ceiling crisis .

Australian PM backs G7 on 'de-risking' trade with China

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Modi’s diplomacy blitz.

Mr Modi decided to press on with his Australian trip, visiting the nation for the first time since 2014.

He was given a tremendous welcome by Mr Albanese, who heaped praise on his Indian counterpart and introduced him as a “dear friend” to rapturous applause on Tuesday at a Sydney sporting arena packed to its 20,000 capacity by Australia’s Indian diaspora.

Australia is home to about 750,000 people who claim Indian ancestry, the nation’s fastest growing ethnic minority. 

Mr Modi has embarked on a flurry of diplomacy activities as he looks to boost his appeal, after losing a state election in Karnataka to the main opposition party last week.

Before Australia , Mr Modi visited Papua New Guinea, where he met 14 Pacific island leaders and pledged his support for the region.

Next month, he will meet President Biden as he travels to Washington for a state visit .

FORGING CLOSER TIES

Observers said Mr Modi’s trip to Sydney, made just two months after Australian PM Albanese visited India , reflects both nations’ eagerness to build tighter alliances as they seek to deter China’s growing assertiveness in the region. 

CNA938's interview with James Schwemlein, nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

“China’s economic coercion towards Australia in recent years, and the clashes along the Indian-Chinese border, are driving these two countries closer together quickly,” said Mr James Schwemlein, a nonresident scholar in the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Australia has been looking to diversify its export markets, after diplomatic ties with its biggest trading partner China soured in the past few years.

Meanwhile, India is struggling to cut its import dependence with its neighbour on the back of a surging trade deficit.

However, experts said China will likely remain the largest trading partner to both nations, and efforts to significantly reduce economic ties to China continues to be an “aspirational dream”.

“There's no question that India’s potential economically is a strong one – a democratic, fast growing, large country with a highly educated population and yet still relatively low wage labour,” Mr Schwemlein told CNA938’s Asia First.

“Competitively, India is an important way to respond to China. But (replacing China) is not something that is close to occurring today.”

‘De-risk’ instead of ‘decouple’ from China: What changed at the G7 summit?

Australia defends Quad's relevance despite Biden's absence | Video

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Indian Australians prepare for Narendra Modi visit despite cancellation of Quad leaders summit

Indian Australians have booked charter buses, a "Modi Airways" plane and a sold-out arena in Sydney to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week. 

Key points:

• Mr Modi's reception will feature three hours of performances
• There have been concerns about religious tension after a temple in Sydney was vandalised 
• It's hoped Mr Modi will lay a foundation stone in Harris Park to honour Indian-Australian relations

The Indian leader will continue his trip to Australia, despite the cancellation of the Quad Leaders' Summit in Sydney on May 24. 

More than 20,000 people are booked to attend a community reception at Sydney Olympic Park the evening before what would have been the Quad meeting.

Indian Australian Diaspora Foundation spokesman Pranav Aggarwal said after initial nerves on Wednesday, plans were going ahead for the visit.

"It is a rare moment. The excitement really knows no bounds," Mr Aggarwal said.

"There have been over 20,000 tickets which have been given out and really our colleagues have been buzzing."

The reception will feature three hours of performances, and organisers are expecting a speech from Mr Modi himself.

The Indian Australian Diaspora Foundation has organised a charter plane, "Modi Airways", to fly keen Modi fans from Melbourne to Sydney for the event.

Another 30 Indian Australians in Brisbane are taking the "Modi Express" overnight bus to Sydney.

There have been concerns about religious tension in the lead up to the visit, with a Hindu temple in western Sydney's Rosehill graffitied with the words "Declare Modi Terrorist" earlier this month.

Similar attacks have been linked to a Sikh separatist group, but the Australian Sikh Association has been quick to condemn the perpetrator of the Rosehill attack as a "thug".

Mr Aggarwal said it was "with deep sorrow and regret" that the community had seen vandalism at sacred temples, but the majority of Indians were supportive of the event.

In the western Sydney suburb of Harris Park, also known as "Little India", shops are adorned with flags and balloons, in the hope Mr Modi will take time in his trip to visit.

"I've been inundated with inquiries that, 'we want to hear Modi, we want to see Modi'," said Sanjay Deshwal, president of the Little India Harris Park Business Association.

He credits Mr Modi for increasing the status of Indians around the world, and for the increase in relations between the two countries.

"Australian-Indian relations are at an all-time high," he said.

"Australia and India always existed to each other for cricket, curries and cinema. But for the first time, after the free trade agreement, politically we are so close."

Not all members of Australia's Indian diaspora are pleased with the prime minister's upcoming visit, as some consider Mr Modi a divisive figure.

Criticisms of Modi centre around his particularly strident form of Hindu nationalism — or Hindutva — which has been condemned for fuelling ethnic tensions, particularly with Muslim groups. 

Debate over a proposed independent Sikh state — dubbed "Khalistan" — in India's north has also raised tensions within the Indian diaspora.

The Indian prime minister's last visit to Australia coincided with the G7 summit in 2014.

He received a rockstar reception at Sydney Olympic Park , and took the stage with one of India's favourite Australians, former cricketer Brett Lee.

Meanwhile, plans for Joe Biden's visit to Sydney have been derailed by the president's decision to cut short his trip , skipping Australia.

Tonnes of gear, Secret Service motorcade cars and the Marine One helicopter which arrived at Sydney Airport on Globemaster C17s will need to be packed up again and sent back to the US.

Mr Biden's planned movements in Sydney were kept under wraps.

Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, including his father John Shipton, had planned a rally in Hyde Park for the president's visit, in support of his release from jail.

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Narendra Modi in Australia: a polarising leader meets a divided Indian diaspora

More than 20,000 supporters are expected at a public rally for the Indian PM in Sydney this week. But critics will be just as strident

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T he public events speak to Narendra Modi’s popularity among supporters - the adoring crowds waving banners, the car convoys and privately chartered “ModiAirways” flights for those who will travel thousands of kilometres to hear him speak.

But for the same man, posters have sprung up around Sydney – before being torn down – offering $10,000 for the citizen’s arrest of the “Hindu Terrorist Modi” and graffiti has been daubed on a Hindu temple in western Sydney reading: “Declare Modi Terrorist”.

The Indian prime minister will land in Australia this week as one of the most powerful leaders in his country’s modern history. But also one of its most divisive.

He leads an increasingly polarised country. India’s diasporas, too, are increasingly split.

The Sydney broadcaster Manbir Singh Kohli, who hosts the weekly Kehte Sunte (Speaking & Listening) radio program, says: “In India, the schisms between communities are getting sharper.

“And unfortunately we are seeing that in Australia too, a polarisation of our communities is worse than it has ever been – the trolling, the division. Earlier, the Indian diaspora used to be proud together but now we are divided.”

India is now the most populous country on Earth and demographics, properly harnessed, are on its side: its economy will surpass those of Germany and Japan in the next half-decade to become the third largest in the world, behind the US and China.

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Modi’s government claims its policies – addressing food security, banking, pensions – have lifted millions of India’s poorest from poverty.

But its leader, dominant as he approaches the end of his second term as prime minister and poised to win a third, is profoundly controversial.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government is accused of a repressive and intimidatory campaign against political opponents – including scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty Rahul Gandhi – independent media and civil society organisations.

Legislation such as the citizenship amendment bill has been criticised as unlawfully discriminating against Muslims , while the farm bills deregulating agricultural markets were abandoned only after more than a year of fervent protests and several hundred deaths.

Modi’s government is even accused of attempting to rewrite history to fit its Hindu nationalist agenda , with school textbooks edited to remove references to Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to Hindu nationalism, to the country’s Mughal history – the Muslim rulers who controlled significant parts of India for centuries – and to the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Godhra, which claimed more than 1,000 lives and in which Modi, then chief minister of the state of Gujarat, was implicated.

Critics of Modi’s government argue he has sought, through the vast power of his BJP, to reinvent the very idea of India: the pluralist, secular conception of India of Jawaharlal Nehru undermined and eroded, and replaced by the BJP’s vision of a country dominated by its aggressive Hindu nationalism, with places only at the margins for India’s multiplicity of minorities.

Modi will speak at a boisterous public rally – a mix of music, dance and politics at which more than 20,000 people are expected – at Sydney Olympic Park on Tuesday, hosted by the Indian Australian Diaspora Foundation (IADF). Privately chartered flights – publicised as yatra , akin to pilgrimage – will bring supporters from interstate.

“He attracts this huge crowd for his exemplary and visionary leadership that is transforming and developing India at an unprecedented pace,” Jay Shah, director of the IADF, says.

“PM Modi is the most popular leader of India at the moment and has a great appeal and following, not just in India but also in many Indians living abroad.”

In 2014, Modi was the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia since Rajiv Gandhi, during the premiership of Bob Hawke. Shah says Modi vowed on that trip Indian leaders would come more regularly to Australia.

“He is keeping his promise and visiting again … This … reflects the speed at which the relationship is growing between our two countries.”

Of the criticism that clings to Modi, Shah says it reflects India’s robust democracy.

“We respect the fact that people can have different views.

“Mr Modi and his government contend that all policies are aimed at addressing specific challenges and ensuring safety and wellbeing of all citizens of India.”

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‘Australia should speak frankly’

Kohli, however, argues Modi’s “abrasive” government has abandoned democratic accountability to parliament or to the Indian people.

“This government doesn’t answer to anybody on anything. There is no accountability, we have seen that in the Adani controversy [Modi’s close links to tycoon Gautam Adani] or over the farm bills.”

“Australia is seeking to strengthen its relationship with India,” Kohli says – economically, with a new free trade agreement in force and the recognised potential of India’s growing market and rising middle class; but also geo-strategically, in alliances such as the Quad serving as a counterpoint to China’s growing influence.

But Kohli says Australia should take a firmer line in its dealings with Modi’s government.

“Modi is a powerful leader. But if you’re a good friend of somebody you can also be critical politely,” he says. “Australia should speak frankly.”

The Indian Muslim Association of Australia has not planned any protests against Modi during his Australian visit. Public officer Sirajuddin Syed says the organisation respects the position of prime minister of India while rejecting the policies of the man holding the office.

“India is home to more than 200 million Muslims, but under Narendra Modi’s government Indian Muslims have faced systemic discrimination, prejudice and violence despite constitutional protections.”

Dr Pradeep Taneja, academic fellow with the Australia India Institute, says Modi is seen by his most ardent followers as an almost “messianic” leader, but by his detractors as a dangerously divisive figure “who has polarised Indian society along religious lines”.

“There is no doubt that some of the Modi government’s populist policies, such as increased cooking gas connections and other subsidies, have benefited people regardless of caste or religion,” Taneja says.

“But it is also true that Modi and other ruling party figures frequently engage in what can only be described as ‘dog-whistle politics’ targeting India’s largest minority. This is also reflected in the rewriting of Indian history, changing of place and street names across the country and the tolerance of violent acts against the minority community.”

The Quad meeting that was Modi’s primary reason for visiting Australia has been cancelled through the absence of the US president, Joe Biden. But Modi has chosen to come to Australia regardless, a further sign that Australia and India’s “interests are much more aligned today than ever before in history”, Taneja says.

He agrees Australia has a “difficult line to walk” in its dealings with Modi’s government.

“The reality is that Australia and India need to work together to deal with the changed security situation in the Indo-Pacific region.

“So long as Modi is popularly elected by the Indian electorate, I don’t think Australia would gain anything by publicly criticising Indian government policies. Instead, Australia should communicate the message indirectly by emphasising its own views on human rights and respect for religious diversity.”

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PM Modi in Australia: Why his trip is significant

PM Narendra Modi is in Australia’s Sydney where he will address a huge crowd of Indian diaspora at an event on Tuesday (23 May). The Indian leader will also hold a bilateral meeting with his Australian counterpart where they are likely to discuss efforts to boost trade between the two nations

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached Australia for the final stop of his three-nation Asia-Pacific tour which began with Japan last week. His trip comes despite the cancellation of the Quad summit in Sydney after US president Joe Biden suddenly called off his trip.

This is Modi’s second official visit to Australia after assuming the post of prime minister in 2014.

Landed in Sydney to a warm welcome by the Indian community. Looking forward to various programmes over the next two days. pic.twitter.com/gE8obDI5eD — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 22, 2023

What to expect from the trip and why is it significant? We explain.

What is the agenda?

Prime Minister Modi will hold a bilateral meeting with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.

The two are expected to discuss trade and investment and strengthen “efforts to boost trade between the two countries through a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, and work to strengthen people-to-people links, renewable energy, and defence and security cooperation”, as per an official statement released by the Australian government.

The Indian leader will also interact with Australian business leaders to propel Canberra’s “growing trade and investment relationship with India and take forward opportunities from the Australia-India CEO Forum held in Mumbai in March,” the statement added.

Modi ’s visit has come amid recent incidents of vandalism of an Indian Consulate and temples in Australia reportedly by Khalistani supporters. When asked if the issue will be raised between the two premiers, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said, as per ANI, “I would only say that all issues of bilateral engagements, including the issues of attaining harmony in our society and the safety and security of our two societies, will be discussed”.

#WATCH | It is not correct for me to prejudge what would be discussed between PM Modi and PM Albanese. I would only say that all issues of bilateral engagements including the issues of attaining harmony in our society and the safety & security of our two societies will be… pic.twitter.com/d0xpuf4xZH — ANI (@ANI) May 22, 2023

Modi, who will spend three days in Sydney, will also receive a ceremonial welcome at Admiralty House, the official residence of the Governor-General.

Modi and the Indian diaspora

The prime minister will address the Indian diaspora at a community event, organised by the Indian Australian Diaspora Foundation (IADF), in Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on Tuesday (23 May).

According to news agency AFP , at least 18,000 people are likely to attend. Supporters from different Australian states are being brought to the function through privately chartered flights, reported the British daily The Guardian.

“He attracts this huge crowd for his exemplary and visionary leadership that is transforming and developing India at an unprecedented pace,” Jay Shah, director of the IADF, told the UK newspaper.

“PM Modi is the most popular leader of India at the moment and has a great appeal and following, not just in India but also in many Indians living abroad.”

Indians, who are the second-largest migrant community in Australia, comprise nearly 3 per cent of the country’s population, according to Economic Times.  

ALSO READ : Modi gets Fiji, Papua New Guinea’s highest civilian honours: The many international awards conferred on PM

Why is the visit significant?

In 2014, Modi became the first prime minister to visit Australia since Rajiv Gandhi. During that visit, the Indian premier had said: “Australia will not be in the periphery of our vision but at the centre of our thoughts.”

Since then, India and Australia have bolstered their relationship. Last year in April, the two countries signed a historic free trade agreement, Economic Cooperation and Trade Deal (ECTA), which was the first such trade deal for New Delhi in more than a decade, as per ThePrint.

In 2022, two-way trade between the two nations was valued at Aus $46.5 billion (US$31 billion). This is expected to rise further with the free-trade deal that came into effect in December, noted AFP.

India’s Khanij Bidesh Ltd (KABIL) and Australia’s Critical Minerals Office also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in the mining field and processing of critical and strategic minerals.

Rami Niranjan Desai, consulting editor of Global Order, and Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation, wrote for ThePrint that the bilateral talks between Modi and Albanese “may fast-track” the agenda of enhancing trade between India and Australia in the next five years “in order to decrease dependency on China for critical minerals”.

Modi’s trip has come amid China’s increasing aggression in the Indo-Pacific region and attempts to make economic pathways.

Earlier today, Modi told 14 leaders of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation in Papua New Guinea that New Delhi was committed to a “free, open and inclusive Indo Pacific”.

New Delhi and Canberra have also improved ties in the field of education, which, as per Indian Express, is the “bedrock of the bilateral relationship” between the nations. Indians make up the second-largest group of international students in Australia. By the end of January 2023, there were almost 70,000 Indian students studying in Australia. Canberra and New Delhi have recently decided on the mutual recognition of qualifications of both countries.   

Dr Pradeep Taneja, academic fellow with the Australia India Institute, told The Guardian that Modi continuing with his trip, despite Quad getting cancelled, shows that Canberra and New Delhi’s “interests are much more aligned today than ever before in history”. The Quad leaders – US’ Biden, PM Modi, Japan’s Fumio Kishida and Albanese – attended a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima on Saturday (20 May).

“The importance of the bilateral meeting between the two countries irrespective of the cancellation of the Quad leaders’ summit signifies the priority that is accorded to this partnership”, Desai wrote for ThePrint.

As per Indian Express , the prime minister’s visit is “illustrative of the importance that New Delhi accords to the bilateral relationship with Canberra”.

With inputs from agencies

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Narendra Modi still set for Australia visit despite Joe Biden's cancellation

The leader of india will still visit australia next week, despite joe biden's no-show..

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in New Delhi in March. Source: AAP, SIPA USA / Hindustan Times

KEY POINTS:

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still travel to Australia next week.
• US President Joe Biden has cancelled his trip to the Quad summit in Sydney.
• Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is not expected to travel.

Human rights issues loom over Anthony Albanese's trip to India

What are Narendra Modi's plans in Australia?

Temple vandalism likely to be raised

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Divided Indian diaspora in Australia tops concerns for Narendra Modi visit

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Narendra Modi arrives this week for an official visit to Australia. When he first came to Australia in November 2014, the recently elected Indian prime minister was still to find his feet on the global stage. Keen to show the new government meant business, Modi worked hard to establish a rapport with other leaders at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Brisbane.

But in the limelight, Modi appeared nervous, not least in his speech to the Australian parliament .

Almost nine years on, things are very different. India is the focus of world attention, as the 2023 G20 chair , with an economy growing faster than almost all its competitors.

And Modi, now a veteran of dozens of summits and visits, is far more confident abroad.

Indifference and irritations

In the meantime, the relationship between Australia and India has also changed. Twenty years ago, the two countries had very little to do with one another. China’s insatiable hunger for coal and iron ore was the main focus of Australia’s political and business leaders. New Delhi concerned itself with its own economic development and overcoming longstanding differences with the United States.

Things started to shift in the late 2000s, as both Australia and India grew more concerned about Beijing’s burgeoning power and ambition. In 2007, both countries took part in a meeting of the Quad , a diplomatic dialogue also involving the US and Japan. Two years later, Kevin Rudd went to New Delhi and signed a new security agreement .

A little later, Australia dropped a ban on uranium sales to India, removing a longstanding irritant in the relationship.

These actions cleared the air, but weren’t quite enough to push the two sides to build a partnership. It took the shock of Donald Trump’s election as US president to provide the necessary impetus. The prospect of Trump putting “America First”, and the possibility the US might not act as expected if a crisis occurred, led to a flurry of diplomatic activity by Australia and India and the reconvening of the Quad in late 2017.

Indo-Pacific partners

Since then, the Australia-India relationship has advanced in leaps and bounds, despite the disruptions caused by COVID.

The biggest advances have been made in the areas of defence and security . The two countries now hold annual leaders’ summits and talks between their foreign and defence ministers . The Australian army, air force, navy, and special forces regularly exercise with their Indian counterparts.

The economic relationship has also become stronger, assisted by the growing Indian diaspora and concerted effort by the Australian government. Education has been a particular highlight, with more Indian students flowing to Australian universities and Australian institutions opening campuses in India .

The conclusion of an interim trade deal just prior to the 2022 election promises to further boost economic ties.

The Quad is opening up other possibilities for cooperation. Since 2017, it has expanded its agenda to cover everything from artificial intelligence and semiconductors, to infrastructure and maritime security.

Closer collaboration in the mining and processing of critical minerals such as lithium, used in batteries, discussed within the Quad , particularly interests both countries.

Deals and the diaspora

These issues and more are on the agenda for Modi’s visit to Australia this week. Boosting economic ties is a key priority. A comprehensive trade and investment deal is the ultimate aim.

Both countries also want to draw on the connections and capabilities of the Indian diaspora in Australia, now almost a million strong, to advance this part of the relationship. The new Centre for Australia-India Relations , based in Sydney, will be central to this effort.

At the same time, Modi is also looking to the diaspora for more political reasons. His Bharatiya Janata Party (“Indian People’s Party”, or BJP) relies on people of Indian origin across the world, especially in the US , for funds, skills, and influence. With a national election looming in 2024, Modi wants to energise and mobilise this crucial constituency to help the BJP to a third consecutive victory.

Read more: Howdy Modi in Houston: why India's Narendra Modi puts so much effort into wooing the diaspora

In Australia, however, the diaspora is divided. Some have long opposed the BJP and criticised its policies, especially concerning India’s 200 million strong Muslim minority .

But lately, a new issue has surfaced in Australia and overseas: a campaign by some Sikh activists for a separate Sikh state, “ Khalistan ”. Unofficial “referendums”, organised to show support for the cause, have been held in Australian cities. Anti-India and anti-Modi slogans have been daubed on Hindu temples .

Only a small proportion of Australian-based Sikhs support the Khalistan movement. But the issue is causing problems for the Modi government and for the relationship between Australia and India.

During Albanese’s recent visit to India, Modi reportedly pressed his counterpart to rein in separatist activism in Australia.

Maintaining the balance

The partnership built between Australia and India is sufficiently robust to manage challenges like the Khalistan movement. And it needs to be.

The security and prosperity of both countries depends on closer cooperation to manage Beijing’s push to reshape our region to serve China’s interests.

Australia and India must work together – and with others across the Indo-Pacific – to maintain the balance of power that allows all countries in the region to determine their own futures.

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Pm narendra modi to go ahead with australia visit to meet quad leaders.

New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's engagements in Australia next week will remain unchanged except the summit of the Quad leaders in Sydney, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced cancelling the Quad summit after US President Joe Biden postponed his visit to Australia to focus on crucial debt-ceiling talks in Washington.

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PM Modi To Visit Australia Next Week Despite Cancellation Of Quad Meet

The australian premier was responding to a question on whether prime minister modi will still come to sydney after albanese cancelled the quad leaders' meeting in sydney on may 24..

Prime Minister Modi will also have business meetings. (File)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday said that his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi would still travel next week to Australia despite the cancellation of the Quad leaders' meeting in Sydney and he is looking forward to welcoming him.

The Australian premier was responding to a question on whether Prime Minister Modi will still come to Sydney after Albanese cancelled the Quad leaders' meeting in Sydney on May 24 as US President Joe Biden postponed his visit to Australia to focus on crucial debt-ceiling talks to prevent a catastrophic federal default.

Anthony Albanese, Narendra Modi, Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were to attend the Quad Leaders' Summit.

"Prime Minister Modi will be here next week for a bilateral meeting with myself," Anthony Albanese told ABC Radio in Brisbane.

Prime Minister Modi will also have business meetings and will hold a very public event at Homebush at the Olympic site in Sydney, he said.

"He will also be engaging with Australian-India business relations ... I look forward to welcoming him to Sydney," Mr Albanese said.

But he indicated Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would cancel his visit in the wake of Joe Biden's announcement.

"Prime Minister Kishida ... was just coming for the Quad meeting. There wasn't a separate bilateral programme," Anthony Albanese said.

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Earlier in the day, Mr Albanese said that Prime Minister Modi would certainly be a very welcome guest in Australia next week despite the cancellation of the Quad meeting.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Quad meeting in Australia cancelled, PM Albanese invites PM Modi to Sydney: 5 key updates

Australian pm anthony albanese said the leaders of australia, the united states, india and japan would instead meet at the g7 in japan this weekend..

US President Joe Biden Tuesday announced that he is cutting short his Asia trip, and postponing his planned visits to Australia and Papua New Guinea to concentrate on the crucial debt-ceiling negotiations in Washington. This prompted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to announce that the Quad summit, which was scheduled for next week in Sydney, will not be taking place. 

Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the United States, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend. Albanese also said that it’s possible that Indian Prime Minister Modi will visit Sydney next week.

Here are 5 key updates about the Quad leaders’ meeting:

Joe Biden postpones his trip to Australia

US President Joe Biden postponed his visit to Australia and the island nation of Papua New Guinea due to the uncertainty and intense negotiations with the Republican party over the US debt ceiling.

In Australia, Biden was supposed to attend the third in-person summit of the Quad leaders with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Premier Fumio Kishida, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Instead, he will now meet them when he travels to Hiroshima in Japan on Wednesday for the G7 leaders' meeting.

Biden invites Albanese for a visit to Washington, Modi to visit the White House in June

During a phone call with the Australian PM, Biden invited Albanese for an official state visit to Washington at a mutually convenient time.

Meanwhile, Biden will meet with PM Modi at the White House while the latter embarks on an official state visit from June 21 to 24. This will be PM Modi's first state visit to the US since he assumed office in 2014.

Albanese cancels the Quad summit

After Biden’s announcement, it initially appeared that the Quad summit might take place after all. However, Australian PM Albanese confirmed on Wednesday that it would be postponed.

"All four leaders — President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida, Prime Minister Modi and myself — will be at the G7, held in Hiroshima on Saturday and Sunday. We are attempting to get together over that period of time [and] I'll have a bilateral discussion with President Biden," Albanese said.

Albanese invites PM Modi to Sydney next week

The Australian Prime Minister said that it is still possible that Prime Minister Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would visit Sydney next week. But officials in all three countries were still trying to confirm their plans.

"We are in discussions with the Quad leaders over today. We'll make further announcements about that, but Prime Minister Modi would certainly be a very welcome guest here next week," he said.

White House reiterates that the Quad remains a priority.

Amid all the changes, the White House stressed that the Quad remains a key priority for President Biden.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: "Revitalising and reinvigorating our alliances and advancing partnerships like the Quad remains a key priority for the president. This is vital to our ability to advance our foreign policy goals and better promote global stability and prosperity. We look forward to finding other ways to engage with Australia, the Quad, Papua New Guinea, and the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in the coming year."

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Modi’s Power Keeps Growing, and India Looks Sure to Give Him More

Few doubt the popular prime minister will win a third term in voting that starts Friday. His strong hand is just what many Indians seem to want.

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By Mujib Mashal

Mujib Mashal followed Narendra Modi on the campaign trail in the important Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra while reporting this article.

As he campaigns across India for an election that began on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of his insatiable ambitions in terms of dinner-table appetite.

Roofs over heads, water connections, cooking gas cylinders — Mr. Modi reads down the menu of what he calls the abundant “development” he has provided to India’s poor. But he’s not stopping there. “What Modi has done so far is just the appetizer,” he said at one stop, referring to himself in the third person, as he often does. “The main course is yet to come.”

To Mr. Modi’s legions of supporters, a third term would bring more of what they find so appealing in him. He is that rare breed of strongman who keeps an ear to the ground. He is a magnetic figure and a powerful orator. He has built an image as a tireless, incorruptible worker for a country on the rise.

But to his critics, Mr. Modi’s talk of a “main course” is an alarm bell for the future of the world’s largest democracy.

Mr. Modi, 73, enters the election a heavy favorite, his party’s grip over India’s more populous northern and central heartlands firmer than ever, the opposition in the same decisive geography even more diminished. Yet even with his place as India’s unrivaled leader seemingly secured, he has carried out a crackdown on dissent that has only intensified.

In the lead-up to the voting, which will run for six weeks before results are announced on June 4, agencies under Mr. Modi’s control have frozen the bank accounts of the largest opposition party. The leaders of two opposition-run states have been thrown in jail, in cases they call politically motivated. (The capital region, New Delhi, is currently governed by a chief minister who sends his directives from behind bars.)

All of this, Mr. Modi’s critics say, shows the penchant for full control that has become evident over his decade as prime minister. Mr. Modi, they contend, will not stop until he has turned India’s democracy into one-party rule. Power is being aggressively consolidated “around the cult of the leader’s personality,” said Yamini Aiyar, a policy analyst in New Delhi.

“The deep centralization of power has significantly undermined institutional checks and balances baked into India’s democratic structure,” Ms. Aiyar said.

Many Indians seem willing to accept this. Mr. Modi has remained deeply popular even as he has become more autocratic. He has paid little price — and even found support — for his effort to remake India into what analysts have called an illiberal democracy.

He exploits contradictions. The right to vote is held as sacred in a country whose democracy has offered protection in a turbulent region. But polling also indicates that large numbers of Indians are willing to cede civil liberties to support a powerful ruler they see as getting things done.

Another seeming incongruity: People who speak of their own economic strife also often express faith in Mr. Modi’s running of the country’s affairs, a testament to the forceful narratives he weaves.

Indians have more tangible reasons to back him, too. Mr. Modi relentlessly tends his broad support base through generous offerings across society: favorable deals for the business elite in a growing economy, robust welfare programs for India’s impoverished majority, and a strong dose of Hindu nationalism for those in between.

A campaign stop this month in his party’s stronghold of Uttar Pradesh illustrated this winning formula.

Mr. Modi stood in the back of a saffron-colored truck as it moved slowly down a shopping street lined with global brands and jewelry shops, a scene that spoke to the new wealth that has lifted millions of Indians into the middle class.

Overhead, billboards with pictures of Mr. Modi — his face is everywhere in India — told of achievements like the installation of more than 100 million toilets for the poor and India’s rising stature.

At the end of the “roadshow,” at the junction where Mr. Modi’s vehicle turned right and headed back to Delhi, was a stage set up with loudspeakers. As Hindu nationalist songs blared, actors dressed up as the deities Ram and Sita posed for selfies with the crowd.

Mr. Modi’s inauguration in January of a huge temple dedicated to Ram, on the disputed site of a mosque razed three decades ago by a Hindu mob, has been a major election-year offering to his Hindu base.

“We are Hindu, we are Hindu, we will only speak of Ram,” went one song’s chant. “Those who brought Ram, we will bring them to power.”

Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., started in 1980 as an urban middle-class organization centered around a Hindu majoritarian core. Under Mr. Modi, it has recast itself as the party of the poor and of the village in northern India, analysts say.

Some in India believe that poorer people have merely fallen under Mr. Modi’s spell. Nalin Mehta, the author of the book “The New B.J.P.,” called that fundamentally wrong.

“The fact that the B.J.P. continues to win these victories reflects how successful it has been in getting newer constituents of voters who never voted B.J.P. before, and who may not even be followers of Hindu nationalism,” he said.

Mr. Mehta attributes much of that success to the party’s expansion and branding of welfare programs and its efforts to promote itself as pan-Hindu, actively reaching out to India’s marginalized castes.

By prioritizing direct digital welfare payments, the B.J.P. has cut out the middleman and made sure the handouts are seen as coming straight from Mr. Modi.

Technology also allows the party to follow up, with B.J.P. workers — armed with data — knocking on the door of anyone who received a water tap, a gas cylinder or a government grant to build a home.

Data creates layers of feedback that help the party pick its candidates, jettisoning large numbers of incumbents before each election. “This B.J.P. is very ruthless on winnability,” Mr. Mehta said.

Bringing it all together are Mr. Modi’s outsize appeal and his political and technological acumen.

He has put his personal story at the center of his narrative of an ascendant India, the main pillar of his campaign. If a lower-caste son of a chai seller can become one of the most powerful men in the world, he says, other ordinary Indians can dream, too.

While inequality has grown and 800 million Indians are at the mercy of monthly rations, many focus instead on their faith that Mr. Modi is not a thief. He casts himself as a bachelor with no descendants who works only for the Indian people, unlike what he calls the corrupt political dynasts in the opposition.

“Modi wasn’t born in some royal family to become prime minister,” he told a crowd of tens of thousands in the state of Maharashtra. “It’s you who have brought him this far.”

The political opposition has been severely weakened by infighting, leadership crises and its struggle to offer an ideological alternative to the B.J.P.

But it also faces a playing field that Mr. Modi has tilted in his own favor.

He has cowed the broadcast media. Independent journalists who do question his policies have been jailed or subjected to legal harassment. India leads the world in internet shutdowns, obscuring unrest that looks bad for the government. And officials under Mr. Modi have forced social media platforms to scrape critical content.

Investigating agencies have been set loose on Mr. Modi’s political opponents — more than 90 percent of cases involving politicians over the past decade have involved the opposition. Many languish in jail or the court system. Those who switch allegiance to the B.J.P. find that their cases vanish.

On the campaign trail in the state of West Bengal, an opposition candidate, Mahua Moitra, spoke of saving democracy from the authoritarianism she said had led to her own expulsion from Parliament — in a messy case involving a former romantic partner, a Rottweiler named Henry and accusations of graft.

Autocracy and Mr. Modi’s perceived coziness with billionaires have been the opposition’s two main attack lines. While campaigning, Ms. Moitra told a group of women that they were still waiting for government money to build homes because Mr. Modi “is busy building palaces for his friends.”

Analysts doubt that either issue will resonate widely. Many Indians, particularly in his stronghold in the north, which has a decisive say in who rules from New Delhi, like exactly what they are getting from Mr. Modi.

“He is the prime minister, and if he is not strong enough, then what good would it be?” Anjali Vishwakarma, 37, an interior designer, said as she walked along the Ganges one recent day with her family in Mr. Modi’s constituency of Varanasi.

Suhasini Raj contributed reporting from Varanasi, Sameer Yasir from Krishnanagar and Hari Kumar from Ghaziabad in India.

Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal

Musk to meet Modi in India; sources say announcement on investment likely

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Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah; additional reporting by Aftab Ahmed ,Shivangi Acharya and Urvi Dugar; editing by Jason Neely, Mark Potter and Maju Samuel

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Aditya Kalra is the Company News Editor for Reuters in India, overseeing business coverage and reporting stories on some of the world's biggest companies. He joined Reuters in 2008 and has in recent years written stories on challenges and strategies of a wide array of companies -- from Amazon, Google and Walmart to Xiaomi, Starbucks and Reliance. He also extensively works on deeply-reported and investigative business stories.

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PREVIEW BOJ to project inflation will stay around target, signal chance for rate hike

The Bank of Japan is expected to project inflation will stay around its 2% target for the next three years in new forecasts due on Friday, signalling its readiness to raise interest rates again this year from current near-zero levels.

Tesla's Musk to meet Modi in India and announce investment plans, sources say

By Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Tesla chief Elon Musk will visit India this month to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is expected to make an announcement on plans to invest and open a new factory in the country, two sources with direct knowledge said.

The billionaire will meet Modi in the week of April 22 in New Delhi, and will separately make an announcement about his India plans, said the two sources, who declined to be named as the trip details are confidential.

The Tesla CEO will be accompanied by other executives during his visit, said the first source.

Reuters is first to report details of Musk's planned India visit. Modi's office and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Musk's final India trip agenda could still change.

Musk and Modi last met in New York in June, and Tesla for months lobbied India to lower import taxes on electric vehicles while it weighed up a factory there. India last month unveiled a new EV policy lowering import taxes to 15% from 100% on some models if a manufacturer invests at least $500 million and sets up a factory too.

Reuters has previously reported that Tesla officials are expected to visit India this month to look at sites for a manufacturing plant that would require an investment of about $2 billion.

Tesla has also begun production of right-hand drive cars at its German plant for export to India later this year, sources have said.

Musk said this week on X that "India should have electric cars like every other country has electric cars. It's a natural progression to provide Tesla electric vehicles in India".

Tesla's push into India comes as slowing EV demand in its main U.S. and Chinese markets coincides with intensifying competition from Chinese automakers. Tesla reported a drop in first-quarter deliveries that missed analyst estimates.

India's EV market is small but growing and dominated by local carmaker Tata Motors. EVs made up just 2% of total car sales in 2023. The government is targeting 30% by 2030.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah; additional reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Shivangi Acharya; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)