It has always been the custom of Prime Ministers to take the country's top journalists with them when the prime minister of the country goes on an official trip abroad. However, Prime Minister's former Principal Secretary Nripendra Mishra has told how Modi broke this tradition after becoming Prime Minister.

  prime minister Narendra Modi's former principal secretary Nripendra Mishra spoke on an ANI podcast about how prime minister Narendra Modi broke the 'tradition' of taking media representatives on foreign trips. Mishra spoke about this as a guest on "ANI Podcast with Smita Prakash" on wednesday (November 29). During Modi's first foreign trip after becoming prime minister, like all previous Prime Ministers, I went to him with a list of names of some journalists. All of them were accompanying prime minister Modi on an official flight for a foreign tour. He looked at the list and said nothing. After 2-3 hours, I said if you don't clear this list, we will be leaving very late. Speaking at that time, he asked what would happen if I did not take any journalists with me.

To this I said, if you do that, you will have a bad relationship with the media. He asked again why that would be the case. media giants send their own representatives to cover the tour. We don't need to worry about their fund. There is no need to carry them on our flight itself. Then I said I can't sir this will cause problem. For this, they should do it again. Note what I said. No journalists accompanied the prime minister on the official tour. That's it.' they said. It was his decision. Nripendra Mishra said that the same was the end.

During his first visit to bhutan as prime minister in 2014, only a handful of journalists from state-linked media outlets such as television and some news organizations were taken. During the previous UPA government, leading journalists of the media used to travel in the Prime Minister's official aircraft. In prime minister Narendra Modi's first few trips, only a handful of journalists were taken. Modi was not at all fond of the tradition of taking more than 30 journalists from national and regional media with him.