If you landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris last week, then India would have been hard to miss. The arrival boards advertise the VivaTech and Eurosatory events in Paris; the screens by the baggage carousels flash the Bharat Innovates event in Nice. Prime Minister Narendra Modi headlined two of them as the marquee guest, on top of his G7 appearance at Evian, making India’s presence in France significantly visible.

Diplomatic visits are easy to over-read. So the useful question about Modi’s France leg is whether the tour’s structure revealed a real reordering of India’s most important European relationship. On the evidence, it did.

The bilateral summit at Nice was the first since the two nations elevated ties to a “Special Global Strategic Partnership” in February; yet, the centrepiece was neither defence nor the Rafale follow-ons that have long anchored the relationship. Instead, Modi and Macron jointly inaugurated Bharat Innovates 2026, the first edition of the event held outside India. The substitution is the signal. When governments choose where to spend the scarce capital of a leaders’ summit, the choice states a priority. India is allocating it to innovation, not hardware.
The full itinerary of Modi’s visit made the intent legible: a first-ever State Visit to Slovakia, the G7 at Evian on June 16-17, then Paris for VivaTech on June 18, where India arrived as “AI Country Partner” with its largest national pavilion. Nice, Evian, Paris formed a deliberate progression: bilateral showcase, multilateral norm-setting, capital market.

It is pertinent to understand how these events and participation matter.

First, the visit converts a domestic asset into geopolitical leverage. India’s pitch has long rested on its digital public infrastructure (DPI). At VivaTech, Modi leaned on exactly these. But the interesting move is the shift from exporting public rails to exporting private innovation.

Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/paris-ai-action-summit-to-bharat-innovates-reading-indias-digital-diplomacy-in-france-pm-modi-g7-macron-101782061132162.html#google_vignette