The New World Order: Chapter 12
Prime Minister Modi arrived in Rome on 20 May 2026 as the fifth and final leg of his tour. It was the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Italy in 26 years. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni received him at dinner the previous evening (on 19 May) followed by a late night walk through the Colosseum.
The Colosseum was the largest sports stadium of its time. On 19 May 2026, it was shown to a man in whose name the largest sports stadium exists today in Ahmadabad, Gujarat with seating capacity 132,000 person. The history of future meets past history in one moment.
In Rome, PM Modi met President Sergio Mattarella, and also visited the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The Agreements
Both countries agreed to raise their relationship as Special Strategic Partners and agreed on following:
- Joint Declaration of Intent, an Industrial Roadmap for collaboration in co‑design, co‑development and co‑production of defence products.
- Continuation under the India–Italy Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025–2029 (already existing; reaffirmed and reviewed).
- Creation of a Foreign‑Ministers‑led mechanism to regularly review the Joint Strategic Action Plan.
- Bilateral trade target of €20 billion by 2029, to be pursued via the India–EU Free Trade Agreement.
- Ongoing cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) is formally welcomed and reaffirmed.
- Greater collaboration in AI, semiconductors, critical minerals, and other critical technologies.
- Cooperation for the development of the National Maritime Heritage Complex at Lothal, Gujarat.
- Recruitment of nurses from India to Italy.
- To celebrate 2027 as the “Year of Culture and Tourism between India and Italy.
- Facilitation of mobility of students, researchers, and academia.
- Reaffirmation of support for the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)
The itinerary of PM Modi also included a high‑level business and outreach event where Modi interacted with over 50 CEOs of large international companies, including Italian and other European firms, to pitch India as an investment and R&D partner.
Two Peninsulas, One Corridor
Meloni’s press statement acknowledged the Italy’s commitment to success of IMEC though fine details of ports and routes etc were not yet made public in official release.
She said Italy and India are both peninsulas projected into crucial spaces like the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific. She said strengthening the interconnections between these two spaces is fundamental. She said both countries are determined to advance IMEC, the infrastructure and economic corridor between Europe, the Middle East and India, born at G20, in which both believe strongly because it can release extraordinary potential for trade and business.
The silence we tracked across UAE, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway broke in Rome. The host of IMEC’s European terminal said its name out loud.
Special Strategic Partnership
India and Italy elevated their relationship to a Special Strategic Partnership. It is the highest level ever in the history of relations between the two countries. The word Special distinguishes it from the standard Strategic Partnerships signed in Sweden and Norway. Italy is not just a partner. It is the European terminal of the corridor India has been assembling across five countries in five days.
Meloni noted that she and Modi had met over seven times in three and a half years. That relationship density of meeting more than twice a year between two heads of government, produced what twenty years of diplomatic process could not. The Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025-2029 signed at the margins of G20 in Brazil in 2024 was already converting into operational commitments by the time Modi landed in Rome.
The trade target is 20 billion euros from current 14 billion by 2029. About 800 Italian companies already operate in India. Three India-Italy Business Forums were held in the past year alone.
Parishram
Meloni used a Hindi word in her press statement. Parishram. Hard work, dedication, constant effort. She cited the Indian proverb “parishram safalta ki kunji hai” or hard work is the key to success. She said this is how Italy and India build their relationships.
A Western European head of government deploying Sanskrit-derived vocabulary at a press conference is not a diplomatic courtesy. It is a civilisational signal. It says we have studied you. We respect what you value. We speak your language not just through translators but through your own concepts.
It completed the arc that began with Sambandh in Oslo. Two different European leaders, in two different countries, reached for Indian words to describe what the partnership meant to them. The New World Order does not rely on English.
What Modi Said
Modi spoke in Hindi as always. He compared the Rome as the Eternal City with his own parliamentary constituency, Kashi as equally eternal. When two ancient civilisations meet and decide to act in partnership, a path to lay down a new history is made. This is what was bing attempted in Rome by the two leaders.
PM Modi announced the principle that will govern India-Italy industrial cooperation: Design and Develop in India and Italy, Deliver for the World. Fashion to fintech. Leather to logistics. Mobility to manufacturing. Italian precision and design combined with Indian scale and affordable innovation.
He named civil nuclear energy alongside AI, quantum and space as areas of cooperation. Civil nuclear appeared for the first time in the entire tour at this stop. Italy has nuclear expertise and India has the world’s most ambitious thorium reactor program. That combination will be making its own history in future.
PM Modi thanked Meloni specifically for Italy’s support in concluding the India-EU FTA. Italy holds significant weight in EU Council decisions. That support was not automatic and Modi acknowledged it publicly.
PM Modi also spoke about Africa. India and Italy agreed to take their win-win partnership to third countries with concrete projects in Africa. The Africa thread appeared in Norway through digital public goods and reappears here through infrastructure. India is not just building the trade corridor. It is also building a network that feeds into the corridor from the Global South.
The Melody Moment
Modi gifted Meloni a packet of Melody toffees. A caramel chocolate candy that has been a fixture of Indian childhoods for decades, sold for a few rupees at every corner shop in the country.
Meloni posted the 27-second video on Instagram with the caption “Thank you for the gift.” The video crossed 100 million views within hours. Melody toffees sold out on Blinkit and Amazon. Parle’s stock moved. A software company whose name contained the word Melody saw its shares surge. A fintech company posted an image of someone paying for Melody toffee through UPI.
Helle Lyng had lasted one news cycle. The Melody toffee lasted 100 million views and a stock market rally.
The Special Strategic Partnership was buried. IMEC was buried. Civil nuclear cooperation was buried. Africa projects were buried. The Design and Develop principle was buried.
A one rupee toffee ate the news.
The Pattern Completed
Stand back and read all five stops together one final time.
In Netherlands the minority rights corridor ambush buried 17 agreements including the Rotterdam-Kandla Green corridor and the Chola plates restitution. In Norway the Helle Lyng heckling buried the Nordic summit’s historic declaration that the old world order is failing. In Italy a toffee buried the Special Strategic Partnership and the explicit naming of IMEC by its European terminal host.
Each substitution followed the same logic. Something small, visual and emotionally familiar replaced something large, structural and historically significant. The media did not plan this. It followed its instincts.
The architecture being built does not need media coverage to function. Ports do not require viral moments to operate. Icebreakers do not need Instagram. Trade corridors do not trend on X.
From Rome, PM Modi returned to Delhi on 21 May. The next morning the President of Cyprus landed in Delhi in May heat that was keeping people indoors. He could not wait. The corridor needed its Mediterranean node locked.
That will be discussed in Chapter 13.
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