US Vice President JD Vance dials PM Modi, discusses deepening India-US strategic ties

Warmly congratulated him and the Second Lady on the birth of their son and conveyed best wishes to the entire family,” PM Modi wrote on X.

US vice president JD Vance dialled Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday to discuss ways to strengthen the bilateral strategic partnership and to exchange views on regional and global issues.

The two leaders agreed to deepen cooperation in areas such as trade, defence, critical technologies and energy security, according to a readout from the Indian government.

“Received a phone call from US Vice President JD Vance. We discussed ways to further deepen India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership across key areas,” Modi said on social media.

Modi and Vance reviewed progress in the bilateral comprehensive global strategic partnership, and noted the “sustained momentum in the high-level engagements”, the readout said. They also exchanged views on regional and global developments, it said without going into details.

They “reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening cooperation in trade, defence, critical and emerging technologies, energy security and critical minerals."

The phone call came against the backdrop of continuing negotiations between India and the US to conclude an interim bilateral trade agreement and differences over the tariff policies of the Trump administration. Modi has also spoken to President Donald Trump on phone several times this year and the two leaders met on the margins of the G7 Summit in France in June.

Modi said in his social media post that he had congratulated Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance “on the birth of their son and conveyed best wishes to the entire family”.

Vance and Usha announced the birth of their fourth child – Alec Neel Vance – on July 19. This is the first child born to a sitting US vice president in more than 150 years.

Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More