Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to win a third term in power, leading a country with the world's biggest population and fastest-growing economy.
Mr Modi used India's holding of the G20 presidency in 2023 to burnish his image abroad, and hopes to build on hosting the cricket World Cup last year by bidding for the 2036 Summer Olympics.United States and Europe That deepening of ties has come despite rights groups sounding the alarm about threats to India's democracy and increased discrimination towards the 200-million-plus Muslim minority.The US Justice Department last year charged an Indian citizen with allegedly plotting an assassination attempt in New York approved by India's intelligence agency.With France, it hopes to expand multi-billion-dollar deals including the sale of Rafale fighter jets and Scorpene-class submarines.
India has shied away from explicit condemnation of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, abstained on UN resolutions censuring Moscow, and snapped up cut-price Russian crude oil supplies. In 2015 Mr Modi made a surprise visit to the Pakistani city of Lahore but relations plummeted in 2019.