Comments
On June 15, 2014, Narendra Modi was just 20 days young as the Prime Minister of India. The day was significant during his tenure, for it was then that Modi embarked in his first official international visit. The PM visited Bhutan for a couple of days at the invitation of the country’s monarch and the government.
Since then, Modi has been on 72 international visits till date — with the latest being to France and the UAE between July 13 and 15, 2023. Interestingly, this comes close to the number of foreign visits former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went on during both his terms, combined (74).
Going by the number of days spent abroad, Singh spent 313 days abroad, of the total 3,657 days he held the post as Prime Minister. As of July 15, 2023, Modi has spent 3,338 days as the PM, of which 273 were spent abroad. However, the pandemic times of 2020, 2021 and a part of 2022, too, need to be taken into account.
Several of these visits that both the leaders embarked on were related to their attendance in international events, summits and conferences. Both Singh and Modi visited the US the most number of times, as Prime Ministers. While the former visited the country 10 times in 10 years, Modi has been to the US eight times till date — four of which were to the United Nations and one, to attend the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit. He has also travelled abroad to attend the funerals of leaders, including Shinzo Abe and Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Modi has also been to Japan seven times and six times each to China, France and Germany. Singh, on the other hand, went to Russia eight times, and five times each to South Africa and Japan. Both their trips included visits to attend multilateral meetings, including G20, G7 and BRICS.
The travel timeline
When seen in terms of the number of trips taken each year, Modi went on to visit nine countries in seven trips in 2014. He went abroad 14 times the next year and in 2018. In 2019, Modi’s foreign trip count stood at 11.
Singh, on the other hand, went on four international trips in his first year as Prime Minister in 2004. The next year, he went on 10 trips — the maximum during his first tenure. Singh went on 10 trips in 2011 as well.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.