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Narendra Modi has been sworn in as prime minister for a third consecutive term by India’s President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony in New Delhi.

The 73-year-old is only the second prime minister, after Jawaharlal Nehru, to win three terms since the country gained independence in 1947.

Heads of almost all of the South Asian nation’s neighbours were present at the ceremony – but the absence of Pakistan’s leader was conspicuous, with relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours being at their lowest over the past few years.

Pic: AP
Narendra Modi, right, is sworn-in as the Prime Minister of India by President Draupadi Murmu, left, at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, June 9, 2024. The 73-year-old leader is only the second Indian prime minister to retain power for a third term. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
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Narendra Modi (right) is sworn in as prime minister of India. Pic: AP

A multi-layered security blanket covered the venue with thousands of police and paramilitaries deployed in the nation’s capital. A no-fly zone over the region has been enforced as well as a ban on paragliders, hang gliders, UAVs, microlight aircraft, and hot air balloons.

Unlike the first two terms, Mr Modi‘s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to win a majority and is now entirely reliant on smaller regional parties to form and stabilise his rule for the next five years.

Its been a bruising victory for Mr Modi, who won a landslide victory in 2014. Since then he has dominated the political landscape of the country.

Read more:
Narendra Modi: A history-making leader with god-like status

In 2019, Mr Modi achieved an increased mandate of 303 seats of the 543 seats in parliament. The overwhelming majority provided him a carte blanche to govern without being dependent on coalition partners. A few of his allies withdrew support but this did not affect the stability of his government.

This time around it’s different. With 240 seats, his party has fallen short by 32 seats and has to rely entirely on smaller regional parties.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), along with many other smaller parties, will help Mr Modi to the crucial halfway mark of 272 seats in parliament.

In the past, governments have fallen by just one vote and Mr Modi will be mindful of the potential of his alliance partners to do him damage.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) from Andhra Pradesh with 16 MPs and the Janata Dal United (JDU) party from Bihar with 12 MPs hold the key to the stability of Mr Modi’s government.

These partners, however small, will extract their own pound of flesh for their support.

Once seen as an invincible strong man heading a Hindu-dominant BJP relying on the religious majority, Mr Modi has now been punished by the Indian voter – especially in rural areas.

This can be seen in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), which has 80 seats and where the BJP won just 33, down 29 from the previous election.

Mr Modi’s right-wing government relies heavily on wooing the Hindu majority, some 80% of the population.

With an eye on the elections, Mr Modi consecrated the Lord Ram Temple in Ayodhya earlier this year. Yet the city, which falls under the constituency of Faizabad, elected a non-BJP candidate.

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January: Why is the Ram Temple controversial?

Read more:
India election: PM Narendra Modi’s coalition wins majority

Mr Modi himself fought his third election from the holy city of Varanasi and won by a margin of just 152,513 votes, significantly lower than his 2019 winning margin of 480,000 votes.

In his party he is ranked 116 out of the 240 winning MPs by vote margin, one of the lowest ever by a sitting prime minister.

The results are a blow to Mr Modi and the carefully crafted image he portrays.

During the election, he resorted to strident anti-Muslim rhetoric. His campaign was conspicuously devoid of the achievements of the last 10 years of government.

That, while the Congress-led opposition campaigned on issues of high unemployment, inflation, cost of living crisis, farmers’ woes and rural distress.

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India may have overtaken Britain as the fifth-largest economy in the world during Mr Modi’s term – but its GDP per capita remains dismal, with India ranking 136th globally.

Unemployment is a persistent problem and thousands of young men risk their lives to seek a better future outside India.

Inequality is at a historic high, even more stark than under colonial Britain.

According to a report by the Paris-based World Inequalities Lab, the top 1% of India’s population controls 40% of the nation’s wealth.

India ranks 111th out of the 125 nations in the Global Hunger Index (2023) report. The government, however, has rejected the report’s findings.

Last year, Mr Modi announced the extension of a free food ration scheme to 800 million Indians for the next five years.

In his third term, Mr Modi is diminished and his right-wing bombast is no longer attractive to the ordinary person, especially the younger generation.

Mr Modi now faces an emboldened opposition whose economic and social programmes are attractive.

He will need to shun the divisive narrative that no longer washes with the public and maintain and protect the liberal and secular values on which the country was created.

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‘The capital is under attack’: Russian drones launched over Kyiv after Moscow targeted

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'The capital is under attack': Russian drones launched over Kyiv after Moscow targeted

Russia has launched a “massive” drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital overnight, after Moscow itself was targeted.

Amid flailing peace talks, the Kremlin’s nightly attacks on Ukraine continued.

Ukraine war – follow the latest updates

A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.

There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.

An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv.
Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
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An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine

‘Massive’ attack

In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.

The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.

He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”

It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.

Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.

A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv.
Pic: Reuters
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A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters

Russia ‘dragging out the war’

Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.

Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.

Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.

A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike.
Pic: Reuters
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A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters

“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.

Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.

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Nine of Gazan doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

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Nine of Gazan doctor's 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.

Warning: This article contains details of child deaths

Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.

Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.

Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.

In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.

The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.

Rescuers removing the children's bodies from the rubble. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
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Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.

“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”

Rescuers placing the children's bodies in a van. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
Image:
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack

Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.

Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.

Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar's husband who is also a doctor, being taken into hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
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Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.

Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.

Rescuers unload the children's bodies. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
Image:
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

‘No political or military connections’

Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.

“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”

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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies

He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”

Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

Read more:
Mum of emaciated baby in Gaza says ‘I don’t want to lose her’
Dad wrongly pronounced dead in Israeli bombing killed in airstrike

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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

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UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

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UN's Antonio Guterres condemns 'teaspoon' of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.

He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.

A woman walks amidst rubble at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Pic: Reuters
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A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’

Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.

The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.

Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.

Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.

More on Gaza

Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

Palestinians carry a body at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza .
Pic: Reuters
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A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza

The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.

The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.

The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip May 23, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.

Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.

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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

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