The PM's overseas visits in 2025 picked up sharply after May, particularly following Operation Sindoor.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned from a four-day, three-nation foreign visit, the highlight of which was the signing of the India-Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
With his return from Jordan, Ethiopia and Oman on December 18, the PM had undertaken 11 foreign tours, visited 23 countries and spent 42 days abroad in 2025, according to an analysis of data available on the ministry of external affairs and prime minister's office web sites.
This is the highest number of nations Modi has visited in a single year since 2015, his first full calendar year as PM, and the most vigorous year of his foreign travel to date.
In 2015, he made 13 foreign tours, visited 28 countries, including Russia and France twice, and spent 54 days.
The PM's overseas visits in 2025 picked up sharply after May, particularly following Operation Sindoor.
But key contributors to his increased overseas travel were India's search for critical minerals after Chinese curbs on their supply, and, more crucially, New Delhi's need to explore diversifying its exports markets to other countries after the White House imposed stiff tariffs on Indian goods.
It is in this context that the PM's visit to Muscat, which had India-Oman ink Cepa, has been important.
That Modi could travel as much as he could in 2025 had also to do with only two assembly polls taking place in the year, in Delhi and Bihar, as was the case a decade back in 2015.
In comparison, in 2024, which coincided with the Lok Sabha elections, saw four assembly polls held subsequently, he went on 11 foreign tours, visiting 16 countries and spent 31 days.
It was more than he had undertaken in a year since 2019, which also saw a Lok Sabha election.
Over the course of his second term, Modi's foreign visits were less frequent than during his first term, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He made no foreign visits in 2020, and in 2021 undertook just three tours, visiting four countries.
In subsequent years, 2022 and 2023, Modi's foreign visits were fewer than they had been during his years in the first term.
In 2022, the PM went on seven foreign tours visiting 10 countries. In 2023, he visited 11 countries during his six foreign visits.
However, the intensity of the prime minister's foreign travel in the first two years of his third term has come to match that of the initial years of his first term.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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