'Why don’t you take questions?': PM Modi ignores Journo’s plea to take questions from ‘freest press’

New Delhi: A Norwegian journalist urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take some questions from the media in the Northern European nation, after he and his counterpart, Jonas Gahr Støre, made press statements following a meeting in Oslo on Monday.

Modi, however, did not take the question and walked out of the room along with Støre.

“Prime Minister Modi, why don’t you take some questions from the freest press of the world?” Helle Lyng, a journalist, was heard asking the prime minister as he was leaving the podium after making the media statement with his counterpart in Norway.

“Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, would not take my question. I was not expecting him to,” Lyng, who introduced herself as a commentator in the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen on X, wrote on the social media platform later. She also posted the video where she was apparently heard requesting the prime minister to take questions.

“Norway has the number one spot on the World Press Freedom Index, India is at 157th, competing with Palestine, the Emirates and Cuba,” she wrote on X, apparently referring to the latest rankings released by Reporters sans Frontières. “It is our job to question the powers we cooperate with,” she added.

The Embassy of India in Oslo responded to Lyng on X, inviting her to attend the briefing by the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs on the visit of the prime minister to Norway.

“It is our job to question the powers we cooperate with,” she added.

The prime minister generally does not take questions from journalists while making statements to the media before or after his meetings with foreign leaders.    

A Dutch journalist in The Hague had also raised the issue during a briefing by Sibi George, the Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs, on the prime minister’s meeting with Rob Jetten, his counterpart in the Netherlands, on Saturday.

“In the Netherlands, there is a tradition that after such a visit, both prime ministers are available for questions. I wonder what the reason is that that is not the case today,” Ashwant Nandram, a journalist of De Volkskrant, had asked during the briefing by the MEA.

He had also asked for New Delhi’s response to Jetten’s purported statement during his meeting with Modi that the Netherlands and the European Union were worried about reports on declining press freedom and curbs on the rights of Muslims and other minority communities in India.   

There had not been any official confirmation about whether Jetten had indeed raised the issue during his meeting with Modi. George, however, had not dismissed the claim of the journalist of De Volkskrant that the prime minister of the Netherlands had raised the issue with his guest from India. The senior diplomat had, however, strongly dismissed the allegation about the curbs on the rights of the minority communities in India.