PM Modi has offered India’s support to Australia and its people who are affected by prolonged bush-fires

Due to massive bush-fires in Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has postponed his forthcoming visit to India and fresh dates are being worked out for a meeting later this year. In a telephone call, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed his condolences on the damage caused by the fires and heavy losses to his counterpart Prime Minister Morrison. PM Modi has also offered India’s support to Australia and its people who are affected by prolonged bush-fires.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Prime Minister Modi has reiterated India’s commitment to strengthen its strategic partnership with Australia. He was due to visit India from Jan 13-16 on his first official visit of the year, at the invitation of Modi and, was also expected to deliver the inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue 2020. This is an annual conference on geopolitics and Geo-economics and is hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and is in collaboration with the MEA.

On Friday, the Australian Navy was called in to evacuate thousands of people who were stranded on the east coast of the country where bush fires have been raging and it was expected to get worse across the states of Victoria and New South Wales (NSW).

Reportedly, huge fires have ripped through Australia’s south-east in which at least 20 people were killed on the New Year’s eve which included holidaymakers and the seaside towns which were engulfed in the flames.

Ahead of Saturday’s forecast of “horrible” fire conditions expected due to the intensified heatwave, the Australian authorities have declared a state of emergency and have started evacuating residents, tourists who were stranded due to the closure of the roads due to bush fires in NSW.