Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling alliance could achieve a crucial majority in the Rajya Sabha next year if some small regional parties join the bloc that recently won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha, according to a projection by an independent research firm.

We didn't see it coming. The tsunami of support that propelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into a second five-year term was a surprise to many of us reporting on the mammoth Indian general election.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday surprised markets by naming Nirmala Sitharaman, formerly the defence minister, as the next finance minister on a day data showed that Asia's third biggest economy grew at its slowest pace in 17 quarters.

India's unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in the 2017/18 fiscal year, the statistics ministry said on Friday, presenting a challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to kick-start job creation in his second term in office.

He made his name as a ruthless backroom politician and master strategist who won election victories for his boss, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also has a reputation for the incendiary, recently describing illegal Bangladeshi immigrants as "like termites" taking grain and jobs from India's poor.

It is time to get talking. That seemed to be Prime Minister Narendra Modi's message to both the United States and China on Friday when he named a highly rated career diplomat with expertise in dealing with both countries as India's new foreign minister, diplomatic affairs experts said.

A tatty shopping centre originally built to house refugees in the heart of New Delhi has become a handy symbol for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his supporters to rub salt in the wounds of their opponents, who just got a drubbing in India's general election.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to name Amit Shah, the chief of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as the country's new finance minister after taking his oath of office for the second time on Thursday, according to several Indian media reports.

India will not invite Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to the swearing-in of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, two Indian government sources said, suggesting any early warming in ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours is unlikely.

Three opposition state assembly members and more than 50 municipal leaders from West Bengal joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party on Tuesday, days after he was re-elected with big gains in places like the populous eastern state.