ISLAMABAD: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was called out for not taking questions from the press during his visit to Norway on Monday.
Modi was asked several questions after he gave his joint statement to the press with the Norwegian PM, which he did not answer. Subsequently, Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svends called him out on it.
Svends asked Modi, “Prime Minister, why don’t you take some questions from the freest press in the world?”
The Indian PM did not answer and exited the press briefing room. Svends pursued Modi to ask him a question on the way to the elevator, but was prevented from doing so.
It is the norm in Netherlands that whenever a foreign head of state visits the country, both leaders take questions from the press.
The Norwegian external affairs ministry was questioned why this was not the case in Modi’s visit but it sidestepped the question.
Modi has not held a single press conference since he came into power in 2014 and is infamous for not taking questions from the press.
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi shared the clip on X and said: “When there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear. What happens to India’s image when the world sees a compromised PM panic and run from a few questions?”
Svends was informed that a press briefing would be held by the Indians later on and she attended the briefing in hopes of getting an answer to some of her questions.
The official at the Indian briefing, to her dismay, spoke about covid, civilization and several unrelated matters but did not address the issue of human rights abuse despite multiple interventions by Helle Lyng.
Indian Government and Modi have gotten a lot of flak from the opposition, journalists and social media users, with a string of posts on severe human rights abuses in India which have been ignored.
This is the second time during Modi’s five-nation tour that he has refused to answer questions flagged by the foreign media.
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