Drama in Oslo Presser: 'Why should we trust you' asks scribe, India's MEA answers

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Please don't interrupt me. Please don't interrupt me. You asked me a question.

[00:00:05]Please. This is my press conference. You asked why should a country trust India?

[00:00:11]Why should Why should a country Why should a country trust India? Why should a country trust India? Let me answer that question. Please. Please have questions. No, when to answer, where to answer, how to answer, these are my prerogatives. You asked a question.

[00:00:30]Don't ask answer. Don't ask me to answer in a particular way. Hi, my name is Hella. I am come from the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen. I am wondering as we strengthen our partnership, why should we trust you? And can you promise that you will try to stop the human rights violations that goes on in your country? And also, will the Prime Minister start taking critical questions from the Indian press at some point in the future? And also, if possible, I would like you to answer straight away.

[00:01:04]Answer the strengthening partnership.

[00:01:06]Why should we trust you?

[00:01:08]Oh, that's okay. And on the human rights situation.

[00:01:16]Let me You asked me question. Let me answer it. Okay?

[00:01:21]>> [sighs] >> Let me give a background of uh what India is and why should the world trust India.

[00:01:33]Let us look at the few challenges that the world faced in the last few years.

[00:01:39]COVID was a big challenge the world faced.

[00:01:44]And how do you test the trust on a country?

[00:01:49]One, what is a country?

[00:01:52]A country today has four elements.

[00:01:56]One, population.

[00:01:58]Two, government.

[00:02:00]Third, sovereignty.

[00:02:01]And fourth, territorial territory.

[00:02:05]So, that is what makes a country a country.

[00:02:09]And we are proud that we are a civilizational country of 5,000 years old. Continuous civilization.

[00:02:19]Continuous civilization.

[00:02:21]Contributed immensely to the world.

[00:02:24]You look around, you see an India connect everywhere in the world.

[00:02:29]India has, you know, the numbers which you see on your phones, it is originated in India.

[00:02:35]Shunya, zero, originated in India. Chess originated in India. So, we are proud of that civilization. Yoga, which the world admires today, it originated in India.

[00:02:50]India had epics and books. Let me answer the question.

[00:02:56]Please don't interrupt me. Please don't interrupt me. You asked me a question.

[00:03:01]Please. This is my press conference. You asked why should a country trust India?

[00:03:07]Why should Why should a country Why should a country trust India? Why should a country trust India? Let me answer that question. Please. So, India is a civilizational country which has something unique which it offered to the world and it continues to offer to the world. Okay. So, let me come back to the COVID which I mentioned. The whole world had suffered from COVID. What did we do?

[00:03:35]We didn't hide in the cave.

[00:03:37]We didn't say that we don't help the world. We came out offering helping hand to the world. That brings trust.

[00:03:46]That brings trust. And I'm very happy that that trust is appreciated by the world.

[00:03:53]We supplied vaccines to more than 100 countries. That brings trust.

[00:03:59]That brings confidence for the world.

[00:04:02]Second, we supplied vaccines to we supplied medicines to 150 countries.

[00:04:09]That brings trust and that is why the world is trusting us. Let me give you an example.

[00:04:15]We organized the G20 summit 2023.

[00:04:20]It was a divided world.

[00:04:22]World was divided immediately after the Ukraine Russia conflict. In a divided world, what did India do?

[00:04:31]India was able to bring the world together.

[00:04:34]Before the 2023 G20 meeting, there couldn't be a joint declaration.

[00:04:41]After the G20, which India held in 2024, there couldn't be a joint declaration.

[00:04:47]But when India organized the the G20 in 2023, what happened? The whole world, despite the differences, came together and we were able to adopt a common global declaration, the Delhi declaration. This shows the trust of the world towards India. Another example.

[00:05:09]Again, I'm going to ask you Let me finish my question. Let me finish my my answer to the question. Let me You asked me a question. You asked me a question.

[00:05:21]You asked me a question, let me answer.

[00:05:24]You asked me a question, let me answer.

[00:05:27]Okay? Let me I will come to that. I will come to you.

[00:05:32]Please. Please. Please have patience.

[00:05:34]Please You know, please have questions.

[00:05:37]No, when to answer, where to answer, how to answer, these are my prerogatives.

[00:05:43]You asked a question. Don't ask answer.

[00:05:45]Don't ask me to answer in a particular way. Let me answer. I will answer. Your first question was on trust on India.

[00:05:53]You know what India did when we were doing the G20?

[00:05:56]We uh immediately before that, we did three summits.

[00:06:02]This is the global voice of global south summit.

[00:06:06]Why did we do that?

[00:06:08]125 countries participated in the summit when my honorable Prime Minister did that summit.

[00:06:14]We used that summit to understand and appreciate the challenges that the global south faces.

[00:06:23]We were able to understand it, appreciate it, and bring those challenges and their aspirations to the main table of the G20.

[00:06:33]This is appreciated. This is what brings trust to the table.

[00:06:37]Then what did we do? First time in the history of G20, we were able to get African Union as a permanent member of G20. This brings trust to the table because we were able to get the aspirations and challenges of the entire African continent, which was ignored, brought to the main table of G20. This brings trust to the trust to the world, and that is what we enjoy. We recently organized the AI summit, artificial intelligence impact summit.

[00:07:13]Again, the trust the world has on India was visible there. First time in the history of AI summit, we had a summit where large number of 20 world leaders came and, you know, participated in it. What did my Prime Minister said? We want a human-centric We want a human-centric AI, which helps the entire humanity. That is what I is, and that is what is appreciated by the world. That brings in trust to the world. Now on the she has left on the issue which is human rights. Let me let me mention this.

[00:07:54]India is a country which is based on a constitution.

[00:07:59]India is the largest democracy in the world. Last time when we had the democracy we had the elections in India the participation was almost 1 billion people.

[00:08:12]That is the the festival of democracy happened in India. And India is a country very few countries in the world has that where there is a peaceful transfer of power happens and it happens in India. So India has a constitution which I'm sure that some of you are aware of. It was established immediately after our freedom struggle again a freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi peaceful way, peaceful, non-violent. That is why the United Nations celebrate his birthday October 2nd as International Non-Violence Day. So we have a constitution. Let me just give you an summary of what the Indian constitution guarantees today. The preamble of the constitution as you know, "We the people of India having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic and give to its people what? Justice, social, economic and political, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status, equality of opportunity, integrity uh dignity of the individual." This is what my constitution guarantees and this is guaranteed through fundamental principles, fundamental rights, fundamental duties, a constitution which is respected by the people of India.

[00:09:37]Every day when a civil service examination happens, when an examination happens based on merit, when a election happens anywhere in the country, it is we are celebrating the constitution.

[00:09:49]This is the beauty of India and we are so proud of that. So, every human being in India has a fundamental right, a right to go to the court if his right is infringed upon.

[00:10:01]This is the beauty of India which we are very proud of. We hear a lot of people asking questions about why this, why that, but let me tell you this. We are 1/6 of the total population of the world, but not 1/6 of the problems of the world. We have a constitution which guarantees the rights of the people, fundamental rights of the people. We have, you know, we have equal rights for the women of our country, which is very important. In 1947, we gave the freedom to vote for our women. We together. We won the freedom together and the day one itself, many countries I know the voting right for women came after several decades after India gave that freedom. You know, this because we believe in equality, we believe in human rights. And what is the best example of human rights?

[00:10:56]The right to change government, the right to vote. And that is what is happening in India.