Foreign Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took the stage at the NDTV World Summit on Thursday to address a flurry of comments that had erupted after Rahul Gandhi labelled his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a "summoning". The minister, who has spent decades as a diplomat, said he "failed to get it" and dismissed the accusation as a political jab.
Jaishankar also invoked historical precedents, citing Indira Gandhi’s 1972 Shimla meeting with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Salman Khurshid’s 2013 lunch with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in Jaipur. He used these examples to argue that traveling outside Delhi to meet a foreign leader has long been a normal diplomatic practice, not a summons.
The US Embassy in India confirmed that Secretary Rubio visited Mumbai and Jamnagar from 20‑22 October to "advance the US‑India strategic partnership, strengthen commercial and investment ties, and reaffirm the United States’ commitment to a prosperous and secure Indo‑Pacific." The visit included a Freedom 250 reception in Mumbai.
During the same event, Jaishankar highlighted the progress on the US‑India trade pact. He said the agreement is in its "last mile" and is currently undergoing legal drafting, with the Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal noting that the first tranche had been finalised and a draft will be released soon.
The minister concluded that while the trade deal’s final contours are still being hammered out, the legal team is working through the remaining challenges. He hinted that the agreement could be operationalised once the draft is approved, signalling a near‑term resolution to tariff and non‑tariff barriers between the two economies.