New Delhi: In anticipation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kyiv Friday, Global media is busy analysing, commenting, and predicting the reasons and possible outcomes of the first-ever visit by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine. The visit is significant as it comes soon after Modi’s Russia visit and amid intensification of the war in Eastern Europe, as reported by global media. From it being a ‘balancing act’ and a ‘symbolic gesture’, to ‘placating’ agenda and ‘bigger goals’, there are multiple theories.
Modi’s visit to Ukraine will signal “that while India will continue to have strong relations with Russia, it will still work closely with the West”, Vikas Pandey, India Editor for the BBC, writes in a report titled ‘Diplomatic tightrope for Modi as he visits Kyiv after Moscow’. This visit comes just weeks after Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, which drew sharp reactions from Kyiv and several Western capitals. Pandey writes that this “balancing act” is not a surprise, especially for India, a country known for decades of non-alignment.
While the West views India as a counterbalance to China and is cautious not to disrupt this dynamic and Ukraine will see this as “an opportunity to engage with a close ally of Moscow”, India too is looking at the “bigger picture”.
“India has been ramping up engagement with Europe in the past decade, particularly with the underserved regions in Central and Eastern Europe,” reads the report.
An analysis in Foreign Policy by Sumit Ganguly highlights that amid the uncertainty of receiving military hardware from Russia, India can “deal with any adverse political fallout” from its Ukraine visit. However, he argues that the rationale of “strategic autonomy” has “in practice…become mostly a shibboleth—and all too frequently a rationale for New Delhi pursuing ad hoc, transactional policies.”
Calling Modi’s recent visit to Russia “high on pageantry”, with Russia bestowing its highest civilian honour on Modi, Ganguly argues that “with his visit to Kyiv, Modi may wish to signal to Russia that its bilateral ties with India cannot be taken for granted”. The piece also notes the possibility of “personal diplomacy” where PM Modi wishes to pitch his “personal charisma” and India “as a potential mediator in the conflict”.
Global Times offers a contrasting perspective. Liu Xin describes Modi’s visit as a “symbolic gesture…unlikely to significantly advance peace talks”. In the report titled ‘Modi’s Kiev visit ‘a symbolic gesture’ for peace talk’, the visit is framed as “an effort to balance its relations between the US and Russia”, particularly in light of the criticism India faced for Modi’s recent visit to Russia. Cui Heng, a research fellow at the Center for Russian Studies at East China Normal University, told the Global Times that India’s limited collective support and the scarce resources it can allocate to global issues like the Russia-Ukraine conflict make its potential role in mediation relatively limited.
Apart from Modi’s Kyiv visit, international media also reported on the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital. In a report for The New York Times, Sameer Yasir and Anupreeta Das write that Indian women are “often left to bear the burden of their own safety”. Writing about the outrage the Kolkata case has inspired, the correspondents recount the 2012 gang rape in New Delhi and how within a gap of 12 years, the two causes have exposed “uncomfortable truths about a country that wants to be a global leader”.
While the Supreme Court “took up the Kolkata case as one of fundamental rights and safety” and called for “real changes”, longstanding “customs that both repress women and, in many cases, confine them to the home have made their safety in public spaces an afterthought,” Yasir and Das write. They note the “dangers” of women traveling by public transport after dark, the constant chiding to be watchful amid the “ineffectiveness” of legal protections. “Shoddy investigations” are brought to light by “protests”.
Meanwhile, a piece in Wired by Monika Mondal highlights lightning strikes in rural India as a growing consequence of climate change. “Stormy weather, a lack of knowledge, and scant protections are combining to kill thousands every year,” Mondal writes, noting that while global lightning fatalities have decreased, deaths in India’s rural areas have “risen by more than 50 percent since the turn of the century, outstripping population growth”.
In regions like Jharkhand and Bihar, where infrastructure is limited and the protection of substantial housing is lacking, fatalities are particularly high. These areas are hotspots for lightning because they lie at the intersection of hot, dry air currents from the northwest and moist easterly currents. Additionally, poor air quality in these regions, particularly high levels of particulate matter, has been linked to increased lightning activity.
Mondal highlights that despite the presence of early warning systems, such as lightning-detection sensors and data monitoring from private and institutional sources, the mechanisms behind lightning formation remain only partially understood. The exact triggers, propagation through the atmosphere, and factors determining strike intensity are still unclear, meaning the risk to human life can only be predicted in broad terms. Moreover, even when warnings are issued, they often fail to reach those in rural areas in time, the piece reads while pointing out the roles of volunteers and the Lightning Resilient India Campaign, who work to spread information and raise awareness about lightning safety in these vulnerable communities.
Shipwreck in Italian waters, Canada’s train stoppage
The reasons for the sinking of a British luxury yacht in Italian waters still remains a mystery. Five bodies have been recovered, including that of tech innovator Mike Lynch. The UK-flagged Bayesian was carrying 22 people when it suffered impact due to a heavy storm. To know more, read the BBC report.
An unprecedented rail stoppage is underway in Canada, a country that heavily relies on its rail network. Amid complaints from workers over working conditions, Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) began lockouts. To know more, read The Guardian’s report.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhari)