{"id":727237,"date":"2026-06-10T11:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727237\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T11:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:01:14","slug":"narendra-modi-australia-visit-indian-pm-to-push-for-increased-uranium-exports-stronger-defence-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727237\/","title":{"rendered":"Narendra Modi Australia visit: Indian PM to push for increased uranium exports, stronger defence ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MatthewSave<\/p>\n

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hoping to use a visit to Melbourne and Sydney next month to unlock a flood of uranium imports and boost defence ties with Australia in a move that will be closely watched by China.<\/p>\n

Australia and India struck a historic deal to allow uranium exports in 2014, but there have been only negligible shipments in the following 12 years.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe blossoming relationship between Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese has sparked concerns Australia is staying silent on human rights issues.James Brickwood<\/p>\n

India is planning a major expansion of nuclear power driven by the surging demand for new data centres used for artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Modi, one of the world\u2019s most important political leaders, is expected to visit Australia in the second week of July, including meetings with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Sydney and a stadium rally for members of the Indian diaspora in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

He will also visit Indonesia and New Zealand during the trip.<\/p>\n

Albanese hailed Modi as \u201cthe boss\u201d during a packed rally of 20,000 people at Sydney Olympic Park during his most recent visit in 2023, sparking debate about whether Albanese was ignoring human rights violations occurring under Modi\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

On Albanese\u2019s trip to India in March 2023, he was ferried around a stadium in Ahmedabad in a chariot decorated with golden cricket bats.<\/p>\n

\"ModiModi and Albanese at the stadium named in the Indian prime minister\u2019s honour in Ahmedabad in March.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said during a meeting with Foreign Minister Penny Wong last month: \u201cOn the energy side, we have energy trade, we are looking to expand that as well into the uranium supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur own nuclear sector has undergone reform, which will grow nuclear energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Organiser, an Indian publication with close ties to Modi\u2019s right-wing Hindu nationalist government, reported this week that \u201cexpectations are high for progress on uranium supplies for India\u2019s civilian nuclear energy program under safeguards\u201d during the visit.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s high commissioner to India, Philip Green, told Indian outlet World is One News last week that the countries were also \u201cshooting towards a new and higher level joint declaration\u201d on defence, noting the countries had not signed a defence agreement since 2009.<\/p>\n

India, Australia, Japan and the United States are members of the Quad grouping, a partnership of democracies that works to provide a counterpoint to China\u2019s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Labor changed its policy platform in 2011 to allow uranium exports to India, removing a longstanding ban that had been in place because India is not part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Cardboard<\/a><\/p>\n

Australia made its first shipment of uranium to India in 2017, but the trade has not taken off since that small and largely symbolic delivery.<\/p>\n

The state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation Of India recently said the country planned to add 18 more nuclear reactors to its energy mix by 2032, almost tripling the nation\u2019s nuclear power capacity.<\/p>\n

India is the world\u2019s most populous nation, with 1.47 billion people. Major tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon are pumping billions of dollars into the Indian data centre market.<\/p>\n

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said bans on uranium mining in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia would hold back export opportunities to nations such as India.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia has the world\u2019s largest uranium resources yet ranks only fourth in global production, and the opportunity to supply a potentially immense Indian nuclear generation program with Australian uranium exported under strict safeguards will add further impetus to overturn outdated and ideologically driven bans on uranium mining,\u201d Constable said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia should be given every opportunity to cement our already strong minerals trade with India in coal and gold by backing our uranium miners to help deliver reliable zero emissions energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian Hall, an expert on Indian politics at Griffith University, said expanded access to each other\u2019s airbases and naval ports would be the best practical way to drive forward the defence relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little bit of energy has come out of the bilateral relationship recently because both nations have been distracted by other things,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Illustration<\/a><\/p>\n

Albanese and Modi will also seek to make progress on a free trade agreement, but it is famously difficult for overseas farmers to gain access to India\u2019s market given the power of its agricultural sector.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch\u2019s latest report on India said the country\u2019s \u201cslide to authoritarianism under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government continued [in 2025], with increased vilification of Muslims and government critics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Modi\u2019s BJP lost 63 seats in India\u2019s 2024 elections, forcing him into minority government.<\/p>\n

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MatthewMatthew Knott<\/a> is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-727237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}