The journalist who asked Modi a question

When I met Helle Lyng Svendsen in Oslo this Monday, she was writing about the proposed upgrade of Norway’s busiest train station. “They want to build the station all over again, as a tall tower,” she explained. “And many don’t like the idea.”

In her current job at the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen, Svendsen covers “labour markets and regular people’s lives”. But the 28-year-old journalist has previously reported from the United States, where she door-stepped politicians and even posed questions to Donald Trump.

In May, when she heard that India’s prime minister was coming to Oslo for a state visit, she could not resist pitching an idea to her editor: how about asking him a question? She knew his reputation for avoiding press conferences.

“My boss said just do it at the best possible time,” she recounted, with a smile. “I said there won’t ever be a great time. But I will find the most comfortable one.”

And so, on May 18, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked off the stage after shaking hands with his Norwegian counterpart, Svendsen’s voice rang out behind him. “Prime Minister Modi, why don’t you take some questions from the freest press in the world?”

The young journalist captured the moment on her camera and posted the video...

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