The prime ministers of India and Australia on Thursday lent a touch of cricket diplomacy to their ties as they inaugurated a test match between their two teams in the western city of Ahmedabad. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Indian host Narendra Modi handed caps emblazoned national emblems to rival captains Steve Smith and Rohit Sharma. They clasped their hands and raised them to the delight of thousands of cricket fans. The two prime ministers were cheered by cricket fans as they went around the stadium named after Modi and later sat down to watch the start of the game. Modi and Albanese also saw a photo exhibition highlighting their countries' cricketing ties. The India-Australia cricket rivalry is considered one of the most intense in the world, comparable to the Ashes test series played between England and Australia. Albanese arrived Wednesday in Ahmedabad, a key city in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, at the start of his four-day visit to India. He paid tributes to Mohandas Gandhi, India’s independence leader, during a visit to the Sabarmati Ashram, which was one of Gandhi’s abodes in India. Albanese later attended a cultural event related to the Hindu Holi festival at the state governor’s residence. Albanese will leave later Thursday for Mumbai, where he will visit India’s homemade aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which was commissioned into the Indian navy in September. The two leaders will hold official talks Friday in New Delhi. “Australia and India are important partners,” Albanese said in Perth before leaving for India. “We share common values. We are both vibrant democracies. We have an interest in improving our economic relations.” He said India, along with Indonesia, would grow to be the third- and fourth-largest economies in the world, which presented “an incredible opportunity” for Australia. India’s goods exports to Australia stood at $8.3 billion and imports from the country aggregated to $16.75 billion in 2021-22, according to the economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative. While India’s exports range from agriculture, garments and railway engines to telecom, 95% of India’s imports from Australia are raw materials and mining products needed by Indian industry. Both leaders have expressed their commitments to a “free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific." They stress the progress of the Quad, an alliance of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, that aims to counter China’s rising influence in Asia.

Hours after being sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese found himself fresh off a jet and thrown into the glare of a global spotlight Tuesday. He was rewarded with a warm welcome, as well as a bit of a gentle ribbing, from U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders at an international summit in Japan. “You were sworn in and got on a plane, and if you fall asleep while you’re here, it’s OK,” Biden joked as the leaders met at the Quad, an Indo-Pacific security and economic coalition meant as a counterweight to China’s growing influence in the region. Biden marveled at Albanese’s stamina. “I don’t know how you’re doing it. But it is really quite extraordinary, just getting off the campaign trail as well.” The weekend election win for Albanese, from the center-left Labor Party, was a vivid change in Australian politics, ending nine years of conservative rule, the last several under former leader Scott Morrison. Albanese has described himself as Australia’s first-ever political candidate with a “non-Anglo Celtic name.” He and Malaysian-born Penny Wong, Australia’s first foreign minister who was born overseas, were sworn into office Monday just before they flew to Tokyo for the meeting with Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Albanese’s election came after a hard-fought campaign during which he caught COVID-19. Because his predecessor set the election date a week later than expected, Albanese had little time to prepare for the Tokyo summit. For his efforts, however, he received friendly greetings from other leaders. Also Read: Albanese sworn in as PM in Australia ahead of Tokyo summit Kishida, in his opening remarks, took note of Albanese’s tight schedule, offering his “heartfelt appreciation for coming all the way to Japan right after the elections.” Modi said Albanese’s presence in Tokyo within 24 hours of his swearing-in “demonstrates the strength of our friendship within the Quad and your commitment to it.” At the summit, Albanese stressed Australia’s unwavering commitment to the regional forum and stressed his country’s efforts to deal with climate change and look for greater engagement with Southeast Asian countries. He did not mention aggressive security moves by China, which many countries in Asia view with worry. During the summit, Chinese and Russian strategic bombers conducted joint flights near Japan, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said, calling it an “increased level of provocation” and a threat to the Quad. Chinese H-6 bombers joined Russian TU-95s over the Sea of Japan and flew to areas over the East China Sea, but did not violate Japanese airspace, Kishi said. Separately, a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane was spotted flying off the northern Japanese coast. Kishi said Japan conveyed “serious concern” to both Beijing and Moscow. China’s Ministry of Defense said the Chinese and Russian militaries carried out joint strategic air patrols above the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the western Pacific. In a meeting later Tuesday, Albanese and Kishida shared concern about China’s new security pact with the Solomon Islands, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. They also agreed to further cooperation in defense, a new U.S-led regional economic framework, clean energy and supply chain resilience, it said.    

Australia's Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese is a politician molded by his humble start to life as the only child of a single mother who raised him on a pension in gritty inner-Sydney suburbia. He is also a hero of multicultural Australia, describing himself as the only candidate with a “non-Anglo Celtic name” to run for prime minister in the 121 years that the office has existed. He has promised to rehabilitate Australia's international reputation as a climate change laggard with steeper cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. His financially precarious upbringing in government-owned housing in suburban Camperdown fundamentally formed the politician who has lead the center-left Australian Labor Party into government for the first time since 2007. He is still widely known by his childhood nickname, Albo. "It says a lot about our great country that a son of a single mom who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown can stand before you tonight as Australia’s prime minister,” Albanese said in his election victory speech on Saturday. “Every parent wants more for the next generation than they had. My mother dreamt of a better life for me. And I hope that my journey in life inspires Australians to reach for the stars,” he added. Albanese repeatedly referred during the six-week election campaign to the life lessons he learned from his disadvantaged childhood. Labor’s campaign has focused on policies including financial assistance for first home buyers grappling with soaring real estate prices and sluggish wage growth. Also read: Australian prime minister concedes election defeat Labor also promised cheaper child care for working parents and better nursing home care for the elderly. Albanese this week promised to begin rebuilding trust in Australia when he attends a Tokyo summit on Tuesday with U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Albanese said he will be “completely consistent” with Prime Minister Scott Morrison's current administration on Chinese strategic competition in the region. But he said Australia had been placed in the “naughty corner” in United Nations' climate change negotiations by refusing to adopt more ambitious emissions reduction targets at a November conference. “One of the ways that we increase our standing in the region, and in particular in the Pacific, is by taking climate change seriously,” Albanese told the National Press Club. Biden’s administration and Australia “will have a strengthened relationship in our common view about climate change and the opportunity that it represents,” Albanese said. Albanese blamed Morrison for a “whole series of Australia’s international relations being damaged.” He said Morrison misled the United States that a secret plan to provide Australia with a fleet of submarines powered with U.S. nuclear technology had the support of Albanese’s Labor Party. In fact, Labor wasn’t told of the plan until the day before it was announced in September. Albanese also accused Morrison of leaking to the media personal text messages from Emmanuel Macron to discredit the French president’s complaint that Australia had given no warning that a French submarine contract would be canceled. Also read: Int'l visitors reach two year high as tourists pour back into Australia In November, French Ambassador to Australia Jean-Pierre Thebault described the leak a “new low” and a warning to other world leaders that their private communications with the Australian government could be weaponized and used against them. Labor also has described a new security pact been China and the Solomon Islands as Australia’s worst foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II. Morrison's government had aimed to reduce Australia’s emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. Labor's goal is 43%. As a young child, to spare Albanese the scandal of being “illegitimate” in a working-class Roman Catholic family in socially conservative 1960s Australia, he was told that his Italian father, Carlo Albanese, had died in a car accident shortly after marrying his Irish-Australian mother, Maryanne Ellery, in Europe. His mother, who became an invalid pensioner because of chronic rheumatoid arthritis, told him the truth when he was 14 years old: His father was not dead and his parents had never married. Carlo Albanese had been a steward on a cruise ship when the couple met in 1962 during the only overseas trip of her life. She returned to Sydney from her seven-month journey through Asia to Britain and continental Europe almost four months pregnant, according to Anthony Albanese’s 2016 biography, “Albanese: Telling it Straight.” She was living with her parents in their local government-owned house in inner-suburban Camperdown when her only child was born on March 2, 1963. Out of loyalty to his mother and a fear of hurting her feelings, Albanese waited until after her death in 2002 before searching for his father. Father and son were happily united in 2009 in the father’s hometown of Barletta in southern Italy. The son was in Italy for business meetings as Australia‘s minister for transport and infrastructure. Anthony Albanese was a minister throughout Labor’s most recent six years in power and reached his highest office — deputy prime minister — in his government’s final three months, which ended with the 2013 election. But Albanese’s critics argue that it’s not his humble background but his left-wing politics that make him unsuitable to be prime minister. The conservative government argued he would be the most left-wing Australian leader in almost 50 years since the crash-or-crash-through reformer Gough Whitlam, a flawed hero of the Labor Party. In 1975, Whitlam became the only Australian prime minister to be ousted from office by a British monarch’s representative in what is described as a constitutional crisis. Whitlam had introduced during his brief but tumultuous three years in power free university education, which enabled Albanese to graduate from Sydney University with an economics degree despite his meager financial resources. Albanese’s supporters say that while he was from Labor’s so-called Socialist Left faction, he was a pragmatist with a proven ability to deal with more conservative elements of the party. Albanese had undergone what has been described as a makeover in the past year, opting for more fashionable suits and glasses. He has also shed 18 kilograms (40 pounds) in what many assume is an effort to make himself more attractive to voters. Albanese says he believed he was about to die in a two-car collision in Sydney in January last year and that was the catalyst for his healthier life choices. He had briefly resigned himself to a fate he once believed had been his father’s. After the accident, Albanese spent a night in a hospital and suffered what he described as external and internal injuries that he has not detailed. The 17-year-old boy behind the wheel of the Range Rover SUV that collided with Albanese’s much smaller Toyota Camry sedan was charged with negligent driving. Albanese said he was 12 when he became involved in his first political campaign. His fellow public housing tenants successfully defeated a local council proposal to sell their homes — a move that would have increased their rent — in a campaign that involved refusing to pay the council in a so-called rent strike The unpaid rent debt was forgiven, which Albanese described as a “lesson for those people who weren’t part of the rent strike: Solidarity works.” “As I grew up, I understood the impact that government had, can have, on making a difference to people’s lives,” Albanese said. “And in particular, to opportunity.”