India holds the presidency of two important inter-governmental forums this year — the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the much larger Group of 20 — for which the leaders’ summits are scheduled for July and September, respectively. Set against this background, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s participation in the outreach sessions of the 49th G7 summit in Hiroshima over May 19 to 21, was significant in terms of establishing credible positions for Asia (in the absence of China) and the Global South vis-à-vis the seven rich Western powers of the G7. Inevitably, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated the discourse — the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communique prominently reflected this concern. In this respect, India’s independent diplomatic position could well have been a major point of contention. It is notable, however, that pre-summit protests from the European Union over India’s exports of petroleum products refin