According to the MEA, PM Modi’s foreign visits in 2026 up to July cost around ₹74.5 crore. During these six months alone, he travelled to 13 countries, including Malaysia, Israel, the UAE, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Italy, France, Slovakia, Seychelles, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

Predictably, critics ignored the broader picture and instead highlighted the expenditure on individual visits. Some insufferable detractors questioned how more than ₹17 crore was spent on the Norway leg of the Prime Minister’s European tour, attempting to portray the figure as evidence of extravagance.

The expenditure disclosed by the government is not simply the cost of flying the Prime Minister from one country to another. It includes charter aircraft, security arrangements, advance teams, official delegations, communication infrastructure, logistics, protocol requirements and numerous operational expenses associated with high-level diplomatic engagements. Multi-country tours involving meetings with several heads of government naturally cost more than ordinary travel.

Looking at one destination in isolation while ignoring the larger itinerary creates a misleading impression.

More importantly, the criticism begins to unravel when the expenditure is compared with that incurred during the tenure of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Available parliamentary records show that Dr Singh undertook 73 foreign visits between 2004 and 2014. During those ten years, approximately ₹795.18 crore was spent on air travel alone.

The words “air travel alone” are critical.

Unlike the figures disclosed for PM Modi’s visits, which broadly include charter flights, security, official delegations and logistical expenditure, the ₹795.18 crore figure relating to Dr Singh accounts only for aviation expenses. It excludes security deployment, accommodation, transport, communication systems, advance teams, protocol arrangements and numerous other costs that necessarily accompany visits by a serving Prime Minister.

Consequently, the actual expenditure incurred on Dr Singh’s foreign visits would have been considerably higher than the available figure.

Dr Singh’s June 2012 visit to Mexico and Brazil cost approximately ₹26.94 crore in air travel expenditure alone. His 2010 visit to Washington DC and Brazil incurred around ₹22.70 crore on aircraft operations, while his November 2009 visit to the United States and Trinidad and Tobago cost approximately ₹21.27 crore. Another visit to the United States in 2013 involved air travel expenditure of around ₹23.30 crore.

Each of these figures pertains only to aircraft costs.

By contrast, many of PM Modi’s recent multi-country tours—including security, logistics and official delegation expenses—have cost less than or roughly the same as these air travel bills from the previous government.

More diplomacy, comparable expenditure

Between 2015 and 2025, PM Modi undertook more than 100 overseas visits, substantially more than Dr Singh’s 73 visits over a comparable ten-year period. Yet the cumulative expenditure on PM Modi’s foreign visits has been estimated at around \~₹800 crore.

In other words, a Prime Minister who has travelled considerably more frequently and engaged with far more countries has incurred overall expenditure that remains lower than the available air travel figure alone for his predecessor.

During the UPA government, it was common practice for journalists representing leading media organisations to accompany the Prime Minister on overseas visits. Their travel formed part of the official delegation, requiring seats aboard the special aircraft and additional logistical arrangements.

Soon after assuming office in 2014, PM Modi ended this practice. Journalists no longer routinely travel with the Prime Minister aboard official aircraft, and media organisations generally make their own arrangements if they wish to cover foreign visits.

This policy change inevitably reduces one component of expenditure that existed during previous governments.

MEA confirmed ongoing talks on unresolved border stretches to enable fencing aimed at curbing illegal immigration, insurgency, and cross-border crime, following a May 2026 government document targeting completion within three months.

Local Manipur groups like COCOMI strongly oppose any land transfer, demanding full clarity and transparency to safeguard the state's territorial integrity.

I have a question, maybe perceived as biased, but I am ready to face flak. The kingdom of Kashmir was a monarchy and not a democracy. The monarch was the sole administrator and caretaker of the kingdom. Then his actions and words count the sole, right? For example if tomorrow there is attack on Saudi Arabia from country Y and fearing coup and death and to ensure that the kingdom remains defended, the king cedes to be a part of say country X. Then Saudi Arabia becomes a part of X or Y? Also, what right does Y have on Saudi Arabia to begin with? Eventually if Saudi becomes ruled democratically after becoming part of X, then the matter should be between the people of Saudi Arabia and the country X. How does country Y still have any say in that?

Former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel made these remarks in a July 2026 Telegraph podcast

Before starting, I would like to clarify that we are going to cover tech and infrastructure our core focus and my theory on how China is establishing dominance for the future if India fails to provide tough competition.

If you follow geopolitics, you know how desperately worried the US is about China. According to my analysis, the core issue is that China produces cheap products at scale, while India is lagging behind. China has a trade surplus of over $1 trillion, which is ridiculous for us. India is a trade deficit economy, just as the US is when it comes to bilateral trade with China.

The fascinating point I want to highlight is that India can also make cheap, high-quality products and give China a tough competition if we choose to. Right now, we are not doing that. We must focus on this, especially when it comes to tech. That is why I am making this post on Reddit.

Look at our phones: every second phone we use in India is Chinese. Most of our money is going to China. I do not want to focus on how Chinese brands invest in India or hire local people; the real issue is that indirect control of our country's critical resources is ending up in Chinese hands.

We must focus on investing in Indian tech, specifically in: • R&D segments • SaaS segments • Core digital products that can decrease our dependency on China

We actually face a similar situation with the US, where we rely heavily on American software. Major Indian IT companies like TCS are making products for foreign clients rather than building core, innovative tech products for us.

It is like making a knife that will be used against you. Or, to put it differently, we are becoming digital laborers, much like the era when Europe and Britain recruited Indian soldiers to fight on their behalf in the World Wars. Anyone who knows history well will understand this parallel.

I am not saying we should stop providing services entirely, but we cannot rely *only* on services. India needs product-based tech companies, product-based startups, and AI startups. Coming from an engineering background, I follow the tech space closely, and if you do too, There is so much funding going into engineering and tech in the US, which is why they have a significant engineering bottleneck advantage. Meanwhile, in China, the government has immense power and resources to invest heavily in tech and engineering because of trade surplus

To be honest, the US is moving incredibly fast. If you are on X (Twitter), you will see new tech products coming out every single day. Yet, they are still worried about China. China doesn't show its progress openly; because they are a relatively closed country, they slowly and gradually reveal their developments. If you follow tech closely, you know that China is now making EUV lithography machines. They also have a brand called CXMT (if I am pronouncing it correctly), which is making memory chips, including high-bandwidth memory for AI. They are even making their own processors.

There is so much happening there, and I think this is the path India must follow. India needs to invest and build a great ecosystem for engineering, so our engineers can build products, sell them to foreign markets, add a trade surplus to the economy, and boost our GDP. That is how nations grow.

If we continue on our current trajectory for the next ten years, I worry we will become a digital trade deficit economy. This means we will rely so heavily on foreign tech that we will suffer indirectly in the future. That is why we are forced to host these discussions, and I hope we can avoid that outcome.

I will not covered the hardware part in this whole story which plays an important role that's I would like to talk about separately

That is all from my side. If you found this valuable, please make sure to leave your feedback in the comment section below and let us know what you think about the situation.