Today in Politics: Spotlight on Day 2 of Modi-Putin talks

On Tuesday, PM Modi will co-chair the 22nd India-Russia annual summit with President Putin. The two leaders, however, will not make any statements to the press afterwards, the Kremlin spokesman added.

“No joint communication with the media is foreseen,” he said. “But we expect an extended exchange of views at both the private and extended sessions, which will largely compensate for the lack of statements to the media.”

After his meeting with Putin Monday night, Modi took to his social media platforms to say: “Gratitude to President Putin for hosting me at Novo-Ogaryovo this evening. Looking forward to our talks tomorrow as well, which will surely go a long way in further cementing the bonds of friendship between India and Russia.”

In context: This is PM Modi’s first bilateral visit after being re-elected for a third term and his first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He comes with a clear message that India sought to “play a supportive role for a peaceful and stable region”.

At their last in-person bilateral meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in September 2022, Modi had told Putin that “this is not the era of war” — a line that was later used in the G20’s Bali declaration that November, and by Western leaders and interlocutors to press Russia to end the war.

Now, with Russia having an upper hand in the Ukraine war and a possibility of Donald Trump returning as the US President in the White House, Modi’s visit is being seen as Delhi positioning itself for what could follow six months from now.

The war has put India in a delicate diplomatic position with its Western allies. New Delhi has walked the diplomatic tightrope, not explicitly condemning the Russian invasion but calling for an international probe into the Bucha massacre in the early weeks of the war, and expressing concern over threats of nuclear war issued by Russian leaders.

Delhi has consistently maintained it is on the side of “peace, respect for international law and support for the UN Charter”, and “strongly advocates a return to dialogue and diplomacy”. India has reiterated that respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states is an essential element of the international order, a euphemism for questioning Russia’s conduct.

Significantly, Modi’s visit to Russia comes as leaders of the 32 nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) gather in Washington DC from July 9-11 to celebrate 75 years of the anti-Russia military alliance.

RSS-linked magazine’s national population policy push

Organiser, the RSS-linked weekly, has in its latest issue pushed for a national population policy.

It has flagged a “population imbalance” in terms of a “rising Muslim population” against those of Hindus and also spoke of lower birth rates placing western and southern states at a “disadvantage” during delimitation.

With delimitation expected to occur during Narendra Modi’s third term, the weekly’s underlining of the southern “disadvantage” is significant as redrawing electoral boundaries is likely to help the BJP, which wins most of its seats in north India.

Echoing the concerns that Opposition parties, especially those from south India, have expressed in Parliament about delimitation, the magazine’s editor Prafulla Ketkar writes in an editorial, “Regional imbalance is another critical dimension that will impact the delimitation process of the Parliamentary Constituencies in the future. The States from the West and South are doing relatively better regarding population control measures and, therefore, fear losing a few seats in Parliament if the base population is changed after the census.”

The magazine’s stand comes weeks before the first Budget Session of the 18th Lok Sabha gets underway on July 22. In the interim Budget speech in February, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced plans to set up a high-powered committee to consider the challenges posed by fast population growth and demographic changes. The committee has not yet been formed.

Recommended Reading: RSS-linked magazine echoes Opposition on delimitation, flags concern about ‘regional imbalance’

Rajasthan Congress meeting

The Congress Legislature Party in Rajasthan will meet on Tuesday to discuss its strategy for the Budget session of the Assembly, following which newly-elected MLAs will be given “training”, Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Swarnim Chaturvedi said.

The Budget Session of the Assembly is currently going on, with the Budget scheduled to be presented on July 10.