With Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarking on Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya tour from 7th to 11th July, 2016 has set a new record as the most travelled Indian Prime Minister at a short duration of two years stay in the office. Only his immediate predecessor, Manmohan Singh, comes close to Modi’s record but that is in his second stint, after the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, when the Congress returned to power with more seats. Evoking Mahatma Gandhi, Modi had said that for India, South Africa is an “important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted.” India would like to work closely with South Africa especially in multilateral fora like BRICS, IBSA, G-20 and BASIC. The visit of the Prime Minister to the African mainland reflects India’s desire to further strengthen and reinvigorate bilateral ties with our African partners which were renewed at the successful India Africa Foreign Summit (IAFS) -III in October last. The visit will provide opportunities to build on close contacts at the highest political level and enhance mutual cooperation and understanding on major issues of common interests. India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century. Earlier the Prime Minister had traveled to various nations but there is hardly any result from these visits for India. Even the expected flow of foreign investments to India has not been satisfactory as political issues like beef controversy, Jat agitation in Haryana and of course militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and in North eastern states of Assam, Manipur etc have played tumbling block. The recent flop show at the Nuclear Supplier Groups meeting where India was expecting to get the privilege of inclusion in NSG club despite hectic visits abroad by Prime Minister to garner support from all the friendly nations did not bring the expected results. The whole gamut of NSG membership failed to take off but on the other side signing of missile technology transfer gave the much wanted respite and it was just a face saving grace for India. Modi, since taking his oath of office on May 26, 2014 has in terms of sheer numbers undertaken many more multi-lateral and bi-lateral foreign visits than any other PM in the history of independent India.
