When Prime Minister Narendra Modi touches down in Suva, the capital of Fiji, as scheduled on November 19, he will mark six months in office. By then, he would have spent as much as a month — one in six days — outside India.
Capping the hectic months of travel will be his three-nation, 10-day tour of Myanmar, Australia and Fiji during which he will attend two big summits — the East Asia and G-20 summits — and conduct bilateral meetings with at least half a dozen heads of state, and possibly more.
But that is not the only record Mr. Modi will be setting. The trip to Australia will be his sixth foreign trip as Prime Minister, having travelled already to Bhutan, Nepal, Brazil, Japan and the U.S. — his upcoming visit to Nepal for the SAARC summit in November will be the seventh.
As a result, Mr. Modi, in six months, would have crossed the annual average of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who made 34 foreign trips between 1999 and 2004 as Prime Minister, and Manmohan Singh, who made 71 visits between 2004 and 2014 and was often criticised for too much travel. In contrast with Mr. Modi, both made an average seven visits a year, but only two in their first six months in office.
Mr. Modi will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Australia since Rajiv Gandhi in 1986 and the first in Fiji since Indira Gandhi travelled there in 1981.
The Prime Minister will travel to Fiji after a four-day visit to Australia, where he will attend the G-20 summit and a number of non-resident Indian (NRI) gatherings, one a mega event at the Sydney Olympic Park for 20,000 Indian-Australians. As The Hindu reported this week, the Australian government will throw a reception for him at Melbourne Cricket Grounds ahead of the bilateral visit to Canberra. Mr. Modi will return from Suva on November 20, less than a week ahead of his next visit to Nepal on November 25.
