India's economic growth falls to decade low of 5% in 2012-13

New Delhi: As he embarks on a visit to Italy to attend an Outreach session at the G7 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said its focus would be on artificial intelligence, energy, Africa, and the Mediterranean.

Modi said this in a departure statement before leaving for the European nation in his first foreign trip after becoming prime minister for a third term.

The prime minister said issues crucial for the Global South will also be deliberated upon at the Outreach session.

The G7 summit, to be held in the luxury resort of Borgo Egnazia in Italy's Apulia region from June 13 to 15, is expected to be dominated by the raging war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza.

"At the invitation of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, I am travelling to Apulia region in Italy to participate in the G7 Outreach summit on June 14," Modi said.

The prime minister said he was glad that his first visit in the third consecutive term is to Italy for the G-7 Summit.

"During the discussions at the Outreach session, the focus will be on artificial intelligence, energy, Africa, and the Mediterranean," Modi said.

"It will be an opportunity to bring greater synergy between the outcomes of the G20 Summit held under India's Presidency and the forthcoming G7 Summit, and deliberate on issues which are crucial for the Global South," he said.

Modi will have a bilateral meeting with Italian Prime Minister Meloni.

"Prime Minister Meloni's two visits to India last year were instrumental in infusing momentum and depth in our bilateral agenda," he said.

"We remain committed to consolidating the India-Italy strategic partnership, and bolstering cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean regions," he said.

The prime minister is likely to hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit. "I am also looking forward to meeting other leaders participating in the Summit," he said.

The G7 comprises the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan.

Italy is holding the current presidency of the G7 (Group of Seven) and is hosting the summit in that capacity.

A key focus of the Italian presidency has been to defend the rules-based international system.

According to Italy, Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine has undermined its principles and triggered growing instability, with multiple crises unfolding worldwide. The G7 will give equal importance to the conflict in the Middle East, with its consequences for the global agenda, it says.

The bloc expanded into the G8 between 1997 and 2013, with the inclusion of Russia. However, Russia's participation was suspended in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea.

In line with the grouping's tradition, representatives of a number of countries and international organisations are invited to the summit by the host nation that holds the chair.

Besides India, Italy has invited leaders from 11 developing countries in Africa, South America and the Indo-Pacific region to attend the summit. Though the European Union is not a member of the G7, it attends the annual summit.

Expelled Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam on Tuesday claimed that attempts are being made within the Congress party to diminish Priyanka Gandhi's stature by giving her a ticket to Lok Sabha in the by-elections. 

His comment came a day after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the bypoll from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat and Rahul Gandhi will retain Rae Bareli. 

"Priyanka Gandhi is the most popular face in Congress. She should have been made the Congress president... By giving her a ticket to Lok Sabha in by-elections, attempts are being made to diminish the stature of Priyanka Gandhi," he said. 

Krishnam further trained his guns at the Congress and claimed the grand old party has proven that it "does not trust Hindus" by fielding Priyanka from Wayanad. 

While wishing Priyanka good luck, Acharya Krishnam said, "But Congress has proven one thing by making Priyanka Gandhi contest from Wayanad, that Congress doesn't trust Hindus. Had they trusted Hindus, she would have been made to contest from elsewhere."

Not only Acharya Pramod Krishnam, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla also attacked the Congress over its decision to field Priyanka Gandhi from Wayanad, stating this decision proves that the Congress is not a party but a "family business."

Priyanka Gandhi on contesting from Wayanad

After Kharge's announcement that she will contest from Wayanad in the upcoming by-poll, Priyanka Gandhi said that she was happy to be able to represent Wayanad. She added that she would not let the people of Wayanad feel her brother's absence. 

"I will work hard and I will try my best to make everyone happy and be a good representative. I have a very old relationship with Raebareli and Amethi and it cannot be broken. I will also help my brother in Raebareli. We will both be present in Raebareli and Wayanad," she said. 

In the Lok Sabha elections 2024, Rahul Gandhi contested and won from both Raebareli and Wayanad Lok Sabha seats. Rahul Gandhi won the Raebareli Lol Sabha seat by a margin of more than 3.90 lakh votes whereas he clinched Wayanad by a margin of more than 3.64 lakh votes. 

Tech mogul Elon Musk has sent a storm across social media after he tweeted that electronic voting machines should be replaced by paper ballots since he believes such devices are prone to getting hacked.

"We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high," said the Tesla CEO as he retweeted Independent POTUS candidate Robert F. Keddy, who in a post talked about voting irregularities in voting machines in Puerto Rico.

"Luckily, there was a paper trail so the problem was identified and vote tallies corrected. What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail?," Kennedy said.

"US citizens need to know that every one of their votes were counted, and that their elections cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference with elections," he further added.

Soon after Musk's post, BJP leader and former IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrashekhar took to X and said, "This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong."

He further added, "@elonmusk's view may apply to US n other places - where they use regular compute platforms to build Internet connected Voting machines.(sic)"

Chandrasekhar continued, "But Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media - No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet. ie there is no way in. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed.(sic)"

He even went on to say, "Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We wud be happy to run a tutorial Elon. (sic)"

Soon after, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi posted an image of a news article that says an individual had access to a mobile phone with which an EVM can be unlocked.

Rahul said in his post, "EVMs in India are a "black box," and nobody is allowed to scrutinize them. Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability."

The news report by Mid-Day reveals that the accused in question, Mangesh Pandilkar, is a relative of Mumbai North West MP Ravindra Waikar, who belongs to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

The article cites police officials as saying that the phone can be used to generate a one-time password (OTP) to unlock an EVM machine, and was used on June 4 inside the NESCO Centre. The phone in question has been sent for forensic tests.