Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often criticized for his foreign visits but very few people know that PM tries to spend his nights in plane so that he can save time, keep his trips short and can accomplish maximum work in less time.
Just recently PM was on a visit to Belgium, US and Saudi Arabia from March 30 to April 2, for three nights he slept in the place, first when he travelled from Delhi to Brussels, then from Brussels to Washington DC and from Washington DC to Riyadh.
Only two nights were spent in the hotel by the PM, one was in Washington and second in Riyadh. A senior government officer said, “It is unprecedented to complete a PM’s multination trip involving US in just 97 hours. If the PM had not chosen to sleep on the plane, we would not have been back for at least six days.”
If we take a look at the foreign visits of the former PM Manmohan Singh, overnight journey was rare and his visits also used to be of more time and mostly he visited for summits and limited to one city only. But now in Modi’s regime, the foreign visits are short and full to capacity in order to save “unproductive night stay in foreign hotels” and efforts are made to use night for travelling.
If we compare the first two years of PM Modi with former PM Manmohan Singh, Modi has been out of country for 95 days in comparison to Singh’s 72 days of UPA-1 and UPA-2 combine. Modi has landed in 40 countries in 20 trips while in UPA-1, Singh visited 18 countries in 15 trips while in UPA-2 he visited 24 nations in 17 trips.
Modi decided to go for midnight flight to Brussels on March 30 as he wanted to use the journey time of nine hours for sleeping and land there at 6 am as per local time. An officer said, “Modi says he wants to push maximum buttons…he has unending energy.” Decision regarding the night stay and community meeting for the following morning was taken in Brussels only but as March 31 was a working day, PM Modi was not in favor of NRIs taking day off for meeting him so the community address took place on March 30 at 9 pm after a day pack of meetings.
Another officer said, “PM said he could easily spend consecutive nights on the Modi Travels by Night, Sleeps on Flights to Save Time aircraft.”
After the community address, PM Modi took a 10-hour flight to USA. The officers took extra pair of clothes in a hand bag as the check-in bags were not taken off of the delegation in Belgium. On March 31, PM Modi reached US and he had a very busy day there. But the amazing fact is that PM Modi didn’t sleep all the time on the plane too, in his flat bed cabin. An officer says, “He wants a detailed debriefing on the plane after one leg of the trip is over. There is no luxury to return to India and then prepare for the debriefing.” PM has to be given briefing within the 30 minutes of check-in into a hotel in a foreign nation before the meetings start. This is what Modi has said about night stay in foreign hotel to his officers, “A night should be spent in a foreign hotel only if there is an engagement scheduled the next day.”
On 1st April, PM Modi attended the Nuclear Security Summit which lasted till 5 pm and from there, he went to airport directly to take a flight for Riyadh at 7 pm. He saved a day by doing a 12-hour journey in night, reached there on April 2 in afternoon, attended meetings, had a night stay and attended meetings the next day too. On 3rd of April, he flied back and reached India at 2 am and he already had meetings fixed for the next day. When an officer was asked about jet lag, he replied, “Before jet lag hits reverse jet lag comes into force.”
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