Narendra Modi Becomes Indian PM With Most International Honours
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the most internationally decorated Indian PM in office. During his recent visit to Cyprus, he was conferred with the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III - the nation's highest civilian honour.
After accepting the honour on June 16, PM Modi shared on X (formerly Twitter), "Humbled to receive the 'Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III' of Cyprus. I dedicate it to the friendship between our nations."
Humbled to receive the 'Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III' of Cyprus. I dedicate it to the friendship between our nations. https://t.co/x4MX3UZbtW
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 16, 2025
The Cyprus visit was part of his three-nation tour, with his next stop being Canada for the G7 Summit and then Croatia.
The latest award from Cyprus takes PM Modi's tally to 28 international honours received from foreign governments during his tenure, a record unmatched by any of his predecessors. The awards acknowledge his leadership and efforts in strengthening bilateral and multilateral ties globally.
Former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh were each recipients of two such international distinctions during their time in office.
Over the years, PM Modi has been honoured by countries across regions - from the Middle East to Europe and Africa. Among the notable recognitions are the Order of King Abdulaziz from Saudi Arabia and the Order of Amanullah Khan from Afghanistan, both conferred in 2016. In 2018, he received the Order of the State of Palestine, followed by the Order of the Distinguished Rule of Izzuddin from the Maldives in 2019 and the King Hamad Order of the Renaissance from Bahrain later that year.
In 2023, he was honoured with Egypt's Order of the Nile and France's Legion d'Honneur. The momentum continued into 2024 when he received six international awards. So far, in 2025, he has received three honours.
His ongoing three-nation visit is PM Modi's first since Operation Sindoor in May when India struck terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the deadly April 22 Pahalgam attack. The four-day conflict ended on May 10 following a ceasefire.
Prime Minister Modi's visit to Cyprus is the first by an Indian leader in over two decades. It comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. The visit also carries weight given Cyprus's uneasy ties with Turkey - a country that, along with China, backed Pakistan during the recent hostilities with India.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
22 minutes ago
- Time of India
PM spoke to Iran President; Will he talk to US, Israel too? Asks Congress
Congress has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's selective outreach after his phone conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian amid escalating tensions in West Asia. Party MP Pramod Tiwari asked why the Prime Minister hasn't spoken to the US and Israeli leaderships, urging a balanced peace appeal and an all-party meeting. Show more Show less
Time of India
22 minutes ago
- Time of India
"Why are you wasting time on a quack?": Pawan Khera hits out at Nishikant Dubey for questioning Indira Gandhi over Shimla Agreement
Congress leader Pawan Khera on Monday slammed BJP MP Nishikant Dubey , who questioned former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi over the Shimla agreement . Pawan Khera called Nishikant Dubey a "quack" and urged the media not to pay attention to him. Taking a dig at Nishikant Dubey, the Congress leader said that he is not even a student from " WhatsApp University " but of "WhatsApp Nursery". Khera further asked Dubey to go to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and discontinue the Shimla Agreement. "Why are you (the media) wasting time on a quack? These are not even students of WhatsApp University but of WhatsApp nursery. Ask him to go to the PMO and tell them to discontinue the Simla Agreement. Why is he wasting time?", Pawan Khera told ANI. Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey targeted former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, alleging that she signed the Shimla Agreement between India and Pakistan under the pressure of the United States. Sharing a document of a Rajya Sabha debate on 'X', Nishikant Dubey questioned why Indian governed 5000 square mile territory was given to Pakistan by India's "iron lady".The BJP MP further queried why 57 Indian soldiers killed in Pakistan's jail dispute were returning the 93000 Pakistsoldiers, who had surrendered after the 1971 war. Live Events Nishikant Dubey mentioned that former Defence Minister Mahavir Tyagi had raised these questions, but former Indian PM Indira Gandhi left them unanswered. Earlier on Sunday, Nishikant Dubey slammed Rahul Gandhi , questioning the motives of the Congress leader to encourage learning English rather than local languages while also alluding to the "hypocrisy" of opposing the National Education Police (NEP) 2020 for language choice, stating that the 1986 NEP had similar goals. "Rahul Gandhi ji, your investigative advisor is hell bent on destroying you. This is the education policy of 1986 given by your father to the country. in this, your father is promising the country to promote Hindi, teach the Sanskrit language and translate English into regional languages. This same education policy is almost in place now. Students should also grow with regional languages, changes in this have been made by Prime Minister Modi ji in 2020," Dubey said in a post on X in Hindi.
The Wire
24 minutes ago
- The Wire
Why Indian Rivers Should Be Granted the Rights They Deserve
As North Eastern states experience disasters under flooding, rivers wreaking havoc, parts of the country also see an extreme season with the drying of its rivers having adversarial impact on soil, agriculture, and livelihoods of millions on depend upon it. Rivers and their critical vitality in shaping, managing and nurturing livelihoods have captured imagination of writers, artists, and scholars for centuries. In the ancient Hindu imagination, the Ganga is not a river. She is a mother. A bearer of life. A witness to history. For thousands of years, poets, priests, and pilgrims have also knelt at her banks, offering flowers and ashes alike. But in the courtroom, such reverence has not translated into responsibility. For Indian rivers today, personhood is poetry – but not yet law. And yet, the idea is not as far-fetched as it once seemed. If the river has a legal standing in a court of law In 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared the Ganga and Yamuna 'living entities' with the rights of a legal person. For a brief moment, the river had standing in a court of law. It could, in theory, sue a polluter, resist a dam, or demand its flow be restored. But the decision was swiftly stayed by the Supreme Court, citing practical difficulties: Who would represent the river? Who would be liable if the river 'committed' harm, like flooding? The Ganga returned to her pre-modern role: sacred but silent. Eight years later, in 2025, the waters are rising again – this time not just in volume, but in voice. Earlier this year, Rajya Sabha MP Satnam Singh Sandhu too introduced a bill proposing that Indian rivers be granted legal personhood through statute. In a nation where rivers are worshipped yet routinely strangled by concrete and sewage, the symbolism is powerful. But what matters more is the potential shift in power: from human dominion to ecological dignity. We have reached the limits of technocratic solutions to ecological collapse. India's flagship Namami Gange mission, launched with fanfare by the PM in 2014, has spent tens of thousands of crores and built miles of sewage infrastructure. Yet, the state of the Yamuna river – an important tributary of Ganga – in Delhi remains a chemical soup, where, fish die-offs are routine, and residents routinely gag at its banks. No amount of money can save a river if its right to flow, breathe, and exist is not recognized in law. In February, a Supreme Court-appointed committee reported that illegal embankments had been constructed through Kalesar National Park, obstructing the Yamuna's natural flow. On paper, it was a clear violation of forest and water laws. But the implications ran deeper. These embankments were not just environmental infractions – they were symbolic of a larger rupture: the quiet, everyday mutilation of riverine systems under the guise of 'development.' When a river's path is bent without its consent, it is not merely diverted; it is disenfranchised. Climate activist Ridhima Pandey, who first came into national consciousness for suing the government over climate inaction stood against the Kalasa-Banduri diversion project in Karnataka. Her protest was against a legal structure that treats rivers as passive infrastructure rather than living systems with embedded rights. Not isolated acts of environmental negligence but democratic failures in slow motion These are not isolated acts of environmental negligence. They are democratic failures in slow motion. Rivers may not cast votes, but they irrigate the very geographies our electoral maps are drawn on. To exclude them from legal personhood is to ignore that their depletion undermines the people who depend on them and the constitutional promises made to those people. Critics scoff. They warn of legal absurdities. Who defends the river in court? Can a river own property? The answer lies not in abandoning the project but in refining it. Guardianship models – where citizens, tribal councils, or environmental boards act as legal stewards – have worked elsewhere. In New Zealand, Maori iwi serve as co-guardians. India, too, can empower communities that have lived with and for rivers, rather than outsourcing custodianship to bureaucratic boards 500 kilometers away. It is a reckoning with the doctrine of human supremacy. Our legal system, forged in colonial logic, sees rivers as resources, not relationships. They are either dams to be built or drains to be dredged. But this worldview has failed us. Climate change is not just an engineering challenge; it is a civilisational crisis. The law must evolve. To grant rivers rights is not to anthropomorphise them, but to decolonise the way we see the world. This is critical for their being and sustenance through a realisation, recognition of rights that matter. The Ganga, after all, has outlived empires. She will likely outlast this one too. But what shape will she take – choked and canalised, or flowing freely as a subject of law and reverence? Personhood is not a silver bullet. But it is a beginning. A way of saying: the river has been speaking all along. It's time we learned how to listen. Deepanshu Mohan is a Professor of Economics, Dean, IDEAS, and Director, Centre for New Economics Studies. He is a Visiting Professor at London School of Economics and an Academic Visiting Fellow to AMES, University of Oxford.
