India blocks over 100 speakers from democracy summit

NEW DELHI: Over 100 international speakers were barred from attending a democracy summit organized by India's opposition Congress party, according to a senior opposition politician. The speaker cited Shashi Tharoor, a Congress MP and former senior United Nations official, who stated that 115 of the 315 speakers approved by India’s foreign ministry were denied entry or had their visas cancelled, possibly due to instructions from the home ministry.

Tharoor expressed outrage, questioning why a "proud democracy" would resort to such stifling measures. A spokesperson for the foreign ministry defended the decision, stating that "visa matters are sovereign functions of any country or any government". Helle Lyng, a Norwegian journalist who had previously questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi about press freedom, was among those denied entry.

Lyng had been invited to speak at the summit on the topic of media and press freedom. In response to the cancellations, the Editors Guild of India condemned the government's actions as a case of "bureaucratic overreach" and demanded an explanation and reversal of the decision. The two-day summit, which began on Friday in Hyderabad, gathered approximately 1,000 delegates from more than 70 countries to debate democracy, climate change, artificial intelligence, and global cooperation.