How NZ Media Views PM Modi’s Forthcoming Visit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to New Zealand has generated considerable interest in New Zealand’s media, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s statement that it would be a “historic event” widely reported there.“This visit is about celebrating a winning partnership between New Zealand and India - one that delivers for our people and supports greater prosperity and security for both our countries.
“We are taking the two countries’ relationship to the next level with our New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement, signed in April…” PM Luxon has said.
New Zealand Herald, Otago Daily Times, Stuff, among New Zealand media outlets, and The Canberra Times, among Australian media outlets, have written about the PM’s forthcoming visit to New Zealand.
The New Zealand media, apart from highlighting India’s growing profile globally, has carried opinion pieces on the Free Trade Agreement and also carried interviews around Hindutva.
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is interested in learning about New Zealand’s high-tech sector and high-performance sport,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been quoted as saying.
“India is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, and a country of enormous importance to New Zealand’s prosperity,” he said.
“…We will also be celebrating the people-to-people connections between our two countries, with Kiwi-Indians comprising around 6 per cent of New Zealand’s population and making a significant contribution to our country. They are highly engaged across the workforce, with strong representation in business, technology, health, science and many other important sectors.
“This visit is about celebrating a winning partnership between New Zealand and India - one that delivers for our people and supports greater prosperity and security for both our countries. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Modi to New Zealand,” PM Luxon has said.
International Affairs expert and JNU academic Prof Amitabh Mattoo told BW Businessworld recently: “Rajiv Gandhi was the last Indian Prime Minister to visit New Zealand, in 1986. Think of how much has changed since then. India was then a closed economy of modest size, focused mainly on its neighbourhood; today it is one of the world’s largest economies, and its voice is indispensable in every serious conversation about the global order.
The Indian community in New Zealand used to be a small trading community. Today it is one of that country’s fastest-growing communities, present in its universities, its hospitals and public life. Having lived many years across the Tasman Sea, I have watched New Zealand’s attitude to India evolve from polite distance to genuine courtship — in trade negotiations, in education partnerships, even in a shared anxiety about the militarisation of the Pacific region. Forty years without a visit from an Indian Prime Minister sent an inadvertent signal: that Wellington did not matter to Delhi. Prime Minister Modi corrects that perception”.
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