PM Modi's international visits and transformative change in India's foreign policy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the Parliament of Maldives on Saturday will be the key highlight of his first bilateral visit after assuming office for the second term.

This will also be the 11th time when Modi is addressing democratically elected lawmakers of another country in the last five years across different continents, a fact that displays a new lease of vibrancy in India's foreign policy, and its rising profile of influence in the world order.

Shortly after assuming office in 2014, the Indian Prime Minister had addressed the joint session of the Parliament of Bhutan on June 16.

"We are together not just because we share a border. We are together because we have opened our hearts to each other," Modi had said in his address.

"Be it Bhutan or India, we welcome each other with open arms, which has created a sense of unity amongst us. In unity, we feel powerful and this feeling is untouched by the forever changing power centers."

Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Afghstan were the other three countries in the sub-continent where the Prime Minister was invited to address the parliament on August 3, 2014, and March 13, 2015, and December 25, 2015, respectively.

"I have returned to this beautiful country as a friend and I am happy to come here as the Prime Minister. Since the day I entered the Prime Minister's Office, strengthening the relationship with Nepal is one of the top priorities of my government," Modi had said in Nepalese Parliament.

One of the most significant moments for India's foreign policy was when PM Modi addressed the US Congress on June 10, 2016.

"I applaud; India applauds the great sacrifices of the men and women from the land of the free and the home of the brave in service of mankind. India knows what this means because our soldiers have fallen in distant battlefields for the same ideals," Modi had said in his speech.

"That is why the threads of freedom and liberty form a strong bond between our two democracies," Prime Minister Modi had further said his speech.

Australia, Fiji, Mauritius, and Uganda were the other countries where Modi was invited to address the parliament.

( With inputs from ANI )