Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says India’s tariffs on Canadian lentils may increase upon landing in India for a trade mission with other Canadian delegates.
Speaking to reporters upon landing in Mumbai on Friday, Moe says he would “love to see” tariffs removed on pea, lentil and bean products — also known as pulses — before the end of the trip next week. However, he added that it wasn’t likely that all products would see tariff removals.
“I’ve heard some discussion that in the case of lentils that there’s some discussion that they might actually increase to some degree,” Moe said.
India currently has a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian lentils.
The country also placed a 30 per cent tariff on Canadian yellow peas in November to protect its local producers.
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India is a major importer of Canadian pulses, accounting for over 50 per cent of all pulse imports from 2000 to 2020, according to Pulse Canada.
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Moe will be in India until next week and says he will be focusing on advancing trade with India on Saskatchewan staples like potash and uranium, alongside agriculture.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to actually advance that trade and not only into other products but into larger volumes of the products that we do,” he said.
Trade with India has been under fire as of late, with threats of foreign interference from the country an ongoing concern.
The day before Prime Minister Mark Carney’s official visit to Mumbai and New Delhi, a senior official said the government believed India was no longer plotting attacks on Canadians.
The official’s comments at a press background briefing were the first to suggest India had halted the clandestine operations that Canada has linked to a murder and other violence.
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But Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree on Thursday would not fully agree with that statement when asked multiple times. Instead, Anandasangaree said there are outstanding issues about the safety and security of Canadians that are being worked out with India.
As for Moe, he wants to continue doing business with India despite the disagreements.
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“It’s important to be at the table in those countries where we have differences, but also where we also have opportunities and points of agreement to be able to talk our way through potentially what those disagreements are,” he said.
The delegation will travel to New Delhi next week before heading to Australia and Japan.
Moe will not be joining the rest of the delegation on the trip beyond New Delhi and will instead stay back to attend the Raisina Dialogue conference in the city, he told reporters.
The Raisina Dialogue runs from March 5 to 7, meaning he will be overseas when Saskatchewan’s spring legislative sitting kicks off on Monday.
Prime Minister Mark Carney leaves Thursday for a 10-day visit to India, Australia and Japan — his first international trip since his headline-making speech in Davos that called for middle powers to band together.
It will give Carney a chance to put that speech into action as he visits three “powerhouses of the region,” Asia Pacific Foundation vice-president Vina Nadjibulla said in an interview.
“The Indo-Pacific is where the centre of gravity for geopolitics and economic growth … is increasingly converging,” she said.
In his speech to the World Economic Forum in January, Carney urged middle powers to work together against “American hegemony” and the efforts of great powers to coerce and subjugate smaller countries.
“In Asia, Canada is having a moment. Prime Minister Carney’s speech really was quite an important development in how Asia sees Canada,” Nadjibulla said.
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Moe says reviving Canada-India trade talks would be ‘a real positive’
University of Waterloo political science professor David Welch said the trip is a “clear follow” on the speech, since India, Japan and Australia are all important middle powers. He said Canada’s “stock has risen dramatically globally since the Davos speech.”
But it’s still not clear how much Carney will be able to accomplish with the trip, beyond symbolism.
“Whether he comes back with deals that do significantly enhance Canada’s economic relationship or security relationship with any of these countries, that remains to be seen,” Welch said.
At the G20 summit in South Africa last year, Carney launched a partnership on emerging technologies with India and Australia.
“We don’t have a lot of details but I’m hoping that we will see some announcements connected to the trilateral during the prime minister’s visit,” Nadjibulla said, noting the agreement came after India hosted a global summit on AI.
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Carney will land in Mumbai on Feb. 27, then head to New Delhi on March 1, where he will meet Indian President Narendra Modi. He will then fly to Sydney March 3 before stopping in Canberra on March 5 and then Tokyo on March 6.
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While Canada has a good relationship with both Australia and Japan, Carney has set out to reset Canada’s relations with India after a diplomatic crisis that erupted in 2023.
In September 2023, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons Canada was pursuing “credible allegations of a potential link” between India and the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A year later, the RCMP accused New Delhi of playing a role in a network of violence linked to domestic homicides and acts of extortion.
Both countries recalled their high commissioners and diplomatic ties were suspended for months.
Then Carney invited Modi to the G7 summit in Alberta last June and the two countries have since reappointed high commissioners.
Canada, India revive negotiations for comprehensive trade deal
“We both decided that this is too important a relationship to let go, for it to meander the way it was meandering,” India’s High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh Patnaik said in an interview last week.
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The two countries have relaunched trade negotiations that have stopped and started since 2010. Patnaik said he’s optimistic about the chances of reaching a deal in just 12 months of negotiations because both countries want stability in a turbulent world.
Both Canada and India are looking to diversify their trade links away from dependence on the United States. Sushant Singh, a lecturer on South Asian studies at Yale University, said Carney and Modi are being driven by the same motive.
“Very clearly there is a desire to close the previous chapter or whatever happened with the previous government … and to start afresh,” he said.
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After India, Carney heads to Australia, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been in power since 2022. Carney will address Australia’s Parliament during the trip, government officials said in a background briefing.
Both Canada and Australia are Commonwealth countries and partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, along with the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand.
Nadjibulla said there is a lot of goodwill and trust between the two countries, along with strong investment ties, but the “defence and security relationship is one that absolutely needs to be strengthened.”
Canada and Australia signed an agreement last year to deploy an over-the-horizon radar system.
Welch said Canada’s relationship with Australia is good but the opportunities for interaction are limited.
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“They’re a commodity exporter. We’re a commodity exporter. They’re an agricultural powerhouse. We’re an agricultural powerhouse,” he said. “Just trying to figure out what we could sell them that we don’t sell them now and vice versa is a bit of a trick.”
Carney’s last stop will be in Japan, also a close ally. His visit comes after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female prime minister, was re-elected in a landslide earlier this month.
“In some ways, the trip is long overdue given how significant Japan is as a partner for us in the region,” Nadjibulla said. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau visited in 2023.
A side-trip to Japan was considered when Carney travelled to Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea last fall, but the timing did not work out.
Carney, Modi hold talks to reset India-Canada ties during G7 in Alberta after tense 2 years
Canada launched an Indo-Pacific strategy three years ago. Nadjibulla said that strategy has led to a deeper relationship with Japan.
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She described it as a “full spectrum partnership” that includes strong economic relations, commercial investment, partnerships on energy and critical minerals, “alignment around values and deep people-to-people ties as well.”
But Nadjibulla noted that because the relationship is in a very good place, “it’s easy to overlook it and to not give it the kind of attention that it deserves.”
Welch said Canada and Japan have grown closer as global volatility and uncertainty have increased.
“Canada and Japan in the past few years just seized on each other as stable, like-minded countries that are committed to a rules-based international order and committed to a liberal international order,” he said.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says a trade deal between Canada and India would be “a real positive” for both the nation and the province.
Moe’s comments Wednesday come ahead of his trip with Prime Minister Mark Carney on a trade mission to Mumbai and New Delhi.
Carney’s office said Tuesday that he will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss ways to expand their trading relationship.
Moe said Saskatchewan “has been waiting some time” for Canada to sign trade agreements with a nation like India.
“Those discussions were occurring a number of years ago, and they were put on pause for a number of years,” he said.
“I’m thankful to see that’s even part of the discussion as we go there, and I’m hopeful that should we be able to get back to the table and start to work out the opportunities for that more broad-based trade agreement, that’s a real positive for Saskatchewan and Canada.”
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How Carney’s travel compares to other Canadian prime ministers
Last year, India imposed a 30 per cent tariff on Canadian yellow peas, dealing a major blow to Saskatchewan’s agriculture industry.
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The province has urged Ottawa to immediately negotiate with India to alleviate pressures.
Earlier this year, Moe joined Carney on a trade mission to China. Both countries agreed to see Beijing reduce tariffs on Canadian canola products in exchange for Ottawa lowering duties on Chinese electric vehicles.
NDP Leader Carla Beck said Tuesday that she hopes Carney and Moe can come back with a deal.
“Get the tariffs off of peas,” she said.
“I also hope that while he has time to be sitting with the prime minister, that we see some big announcements in this province about infrastructure.”
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The trip comes ahead of the Saskatchewan spring legislative sitting, which is to start next week.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is bringing the Liberals’ newest member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux along for his upcoming trip to India, Australia and Japan, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed Tuesday.
The PMO said Jeneroux will be part of Carney’s delegation in his new role as “special advisor on economic and security partnerships” during the trip, which will last from Thursday to March 7.
Carney gave the title to Jeneroux while announcing the Edmonton Riverbend MP’s crossing from the Conservatives to the Liberals last week.
During a sit-down in Edmonton following the announcement, Carney cited Jeneroux’s experience serving on a number of parliamentary associations and working groups focused on international relations, including NATO, the United Kingdom, ASEAN and Japan.
“I’m very fortunate Matt is going to be lending some of that expertise directly to me as we’re building our partnerships,” Carney told reporters at that meeting.
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Carney will travel to Mumbai and New Delhi, India; Sydney and Canberra, Australia; and Tokyo “to focus on expanding economic and business relationships, identify investment opportunities in Canada, and create new partnerships to benefit workers and businesses across our nations,” the PMO said Tuesday.
Jeneroux will be part of the delegation for all three legs of the trip, along with Defence Minister David McGuinty.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu will be part of an expanded delegation for the visit to India, along with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt.
Champagne will continue on to Australia with Carney, Jeneroux and McGuinty.
How Carney’s travel compares to other Canadian prime ministers
The India trip is the latest move by Carney to repair ties with the country following years of tense relations over allegations of foreign interference by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
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Global News reported Tuesday that police in Vancouver have warned a Canadian Sikh leader in British Columbia about a “credible threat” to his life.
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The Sikh activist, Moninder Singh, believes it is the latest attempt by the government of India to silence its Canadian opponents, after fellow activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in Surrey, B.C., in 2023 — allegedly by Indian government agents.
Anand told reporters Monday that she “repeatedly raised issues relating to domestic rule of law” and transnational repression when she visited India in October 2025, and that those issues would be brought up again on this trip.
“That is always at the forefront of our minds,” she said.
“In addition, at this moment in time, we are ensuring that we diversify trade relationships. That has meant signing 12 trade agreements over the last six months over four continents. But the priority sequence is to ensure the safety and security and rule of law concerns of Canadians are advanced at all times.”
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Anand to address transnational repression, Nijjar killing, trade during India trip
By the time he returns home from the three-country trip on March 7, Carney will have spent 68 days abroad in his first year as prime minister. That represents over 20 per cent of his time in office when subtracting the 36-day federal election campaign in 2025.
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By comparison, former prime minister Justin Trudeau was abroad for 34 days, or 9.3 per cent of the time, while ex-prime minister Stephen Harper was abroad for 54 days, or 15 per cent of his first year, according to a Global News analysis.
Carney and the Liberals have said it’s necessary to diversify Canada’s international trade relationships in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canadian sovereignty.
“This prime minister has made trade diversification a real centrepiece of his time in office. And so it makes sense that he’s going out there trying to make deals,” said Roland Paris, a University of Ottawa professor who briefly served as a foreign policy advisor to Trudeau.
Opposition MPs, however, have criticized the amount of time Carney has spent abroad along with the associated cost of that travel.
“He has flown enough kilometres to circle the earth four times, but after all that globetrotting, Canadians still get no deals, no relief, higher tariffs and higher bills,” said Conservative MP Carole Anstey in the House of Commons on Nov. 21.
— with files from Global’s Stewart Bell and Mackenzie Gray, and David Akin
Commuters make their way past India Gate amid smoggy conditions in New Delhi, India, on October 29, 2025.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Countries across the globe are increasingly turning to a decades-old weather modification technique as part of a push to control when and where it rains.
Alongside the U.S. and China, which boasts the world’s largest weather modification program, France, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia are among a growing list of countries to have experimented with cloud seeding.
For many, the embrace of rain-making operations stems from the need to boost water supplies as global demand continues to rise amid the climate crisis.
Others have sought to use cloud seeding to disperse fog at airports, tackle air pollution, reduce hail damage or even to manipulate the weather for major events, such as the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Cloud seeding aims to improve a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny particles, usually silver iodide. The process is limited both in area and duration and, over time, is estimated to increase local precipitation by 5% to 15%.
Augustus Doricko, CEO of Rainmaker, a California-based cloud seeding company, said there are two dynamics at play that seem to be rekindling people’s interest in the technology — both in the U.S. and across the world.
“One is truly just circumstance, a lot of these countries and regions are suffering from more volatility in climate and precipitation patterns and their water supply, and so it’s leading them through necessity to be more creative than they were in the past,” Doricko told CNBC by telephone.
“Two, and I think this is like the real meat and potatoes of why Rainmaker got started, it’s because in the last few years there have been some fundamental breakthroughs in how to do measurements and attribution of cloud seeding effects.”
Despite an 80-year legacy, Doricko said interest in cloud seeding “really fell off” in the 1970s and 1980s because it had been difficult to accurately measure how much precipitation derived from cloud seeding deployments.
Recent technological improvements now make it possible to verify the success of these deployments in real time, Doricko said.
The company, which says it intends to arrest the aridification of the American West, has grown rapidly in recent months, from just 19 employees at the beginning of 2025 to 120 today, a trend that appears to underscore the booming interest in cloud seeding.
Yet, despite its name, Doricko said the company’s cloud seeding projects are mostly designed to make it snow.
“I misnamed the company it turns out, and ‘Snowmaker’ probably would have been more apt. It doesn’t sound as good for what it’s worth,” Doricko said.
He added: “I think that the most important thing for Rainmaker to do this season is just to make unambiguous evidence of manmade snow — and do it so often that it is undeniably a viable and scalable technology.”
Other U.S.-based cloud seeding companies include Weather Modification Inc. in North Dakota and North American Weather Consultants in Utah, although some U.S. states, such as Florida and Tennessee, have banned weather modification activities.
‘A viable water source’
There are two key reasons for why more countries are embracing cloud seeding operations, according to Frank McDonough, a research scientist at the Nevada-based Desert Research Institute (DRI).
Firstly, the scientific research and validation efforts that have been conducted on cloud seeding projects around the world over the past several decades “have provided enough data and cost-benefit analysis for stakeholders to use this tool with confidence,” McDonough told CNBC by email.
“The other concept of why more countries may be embracing cloud seeding technologies is that it’s currently one of the only options to enhance increasingly stressed localized water resources or help mitigate regional air pollution by using Earth’s natural atmospheric systems as a viable water source,” McDonough said.
Most other technologies rely upon water resources that are directly pulled from a watershed’s surface of groundwater, McDonough said, citing ski resorts using stored water to operate their winter snow-making equipment as one example.
“Cloud seeding can actually add new water resources to the system. Having extra resources to put into the ‘watershed bank’ for following year’s snowmaking needs is why stakeholders continue to fund these projects,” he added.
In terms of state-level support, China has reportedly backed its weather modification program with $2 billion between 2014 and 2021, while Saudi Arabia spent $256 million in 2022 to support the first year of its regional cloud seeding program.
Mixed results
Authorities in Iran reportedly sprayed clouds with chemicals over the Urmia lake basin late last year, seeking to boost rainfall to combat the country’s worst drought in decades.
Such projects are not always successful, however. Together with the Delhi government, a team at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur recently reported mixed results following a cloud seeding trial to tackle air pollution in India’s capital city.
The IIT said in a statement at the time that its attempt was “not completely successful” due to a lack of moisture in the air, before adding that there had been a measurable reduction in particulate matter following the experiment.
People watch as an airplane flies during an operation of cloud seeding at Adi Soemarmo air force base in Boyolali, Central Java, Indonesia, Feb. 24, 2023.
Diana Francis, head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences lab at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, said cloud seeding can “modestly enhance” precipitation in the right conditions.
“But it is incremental, not transformative, and works best as part of a broader water and air-quality strategy,” Francis told CNBC by email.
Cloud seeding operations might typically cost between $1 to $10 per hectare-meter of additional water, Francis said, noting that while this remains highly variable, it works out to be much cheaper than desalination.
There are also other key caveats to consider, such as a strong dependence on cloud microphysics (given cloud seeding only works on existing clouds), problems with attribution and potential geopolitical and legal issues regarding downwind impacts, Francis said.
Studies have shown no significant impact on either human health or the environment from previous silver iodide cloud seeding projects, according to the World Meteorological Organization, while further investigation is needed to assess downwind effects.
The U.N. weather agency has also acknowledged that significant challenges in public, social and local acceptance of rain-making operations remain widely evident.
A woman who had a large part of her stomach removed after a negligent GP failed to see her in person spoke of her ‘rage’ at seeing the doctor had fled to India afterwards.
Oriana McDonald had found a lump on her stomach and discovered her temperature was 36.6C, so she went to see a local GP, Dr Nupur Mittal.
The 57-year-old told how Dr Mittal was stood at a sink in her room at the Waterfield Practice in Bracknell, Berkshire, for the entire ‘two minute’ consultation on July 6 2018.
Oriana told the Daily Mail: ‘I would have been in the room for two minutes, less than two minutes. She was able to diagnose me from the other end of the room, with her back to me and said ‘antibiotics’, ‘cellulitis’.
‘I was like, ‘you didn’t even touch me, take my temperature’, she recalled. ‘She was not interested in the least.’
Dr Mittal should have been supervised during the appointment, because there were previous patients who had complained, but she was not, Oriana said.
Despite taking the antibiotics, three days later Oriana had begun to feel worse and called the practice again, where she spoke to Dr Mittal on the phone.
Dr Nupur Mittal was hit with a £128,000 medical negligence bill after failing to diagnose ‘systematically unwell’ Oriana when she called the doctor’s surgery
Her partner, Ian Gale, became increasingly concerned and called for an ambulance on July 11 2018
‘She said, ‘I will give you another antibiotic, if it gets any worse you might have to phone the hospital’. She didn’t really care, she was definitely not interested at all.’
Oriana had reported the redness on her stomach had spread, she was sweating and she could not move. Her partner, Ian Gale, became increasingly concerned and called for an ambulance on July 11 2018.
Mr Gale, who is a wheelchair user, said he was unable to get to the hospital, but that he spoke to a doctor, who informed him Oriana was facing ‘life or death surgery’.
Oriana was diagnosed with a very large abscess or cyst on the abdominal wall with signs of sepsis.
Medics suspected necrotising fasciitis, known as the ‘flesh-eating disease’, which is a rare and life-threatening infection that starts in a wound. She had radical surgery which removed a large amount of tissue from her stomach.
‘I have got a scar going from my hip bone to my hip bone, from left to right to left, it took over a year to heal completely’, she said, adding she often feels conscious of the scar and it makes wearing clothes difficult.
Oriana told how she only began to think of pursuing compensation against Dr Mittal two years after the event.
‘I was just happy to be alive and coping and then I was talking with Ian and I was like, ‘I’m not happy unless she is struck off’, because I did not want it to happen to anybody else.
Since late 2024, Dr Mittal has been running the Ambala Wellness Clinic – in Ambala, a city in northern India – which boasts of her ’20 years of international experience in the UK’
‘We wanted to save anyone else from what I have gone through, the next one might have been dead.’
The couple instructed BLV Law solicitors and launched a civil claim in medical negligence against Dr Mittal, but the doctor failed to respond to any of their correspondence and did not attend court.
In Dr Mittal’s absence, they were awarded a total of £128,204.30 including damages, legal costs and interest.
The court found her liable for medical negligence as she failed to diagnose Oriana, which caused her injuries.
They only learned Dr Mittal had left the UK to go to India when they sought to secure the debt against her home in Reading and Dr Mittal’s husband, who is also a GP, responded to object.
On learning Dr Mittal had gone to India, Oriana said: ‘I did feel a bit of rage towards her.
‘If she had just diagnosed this in the first place I would have had a two-inch scar.’
Ian added: ‘She was just burying her head in the sand, she was just hiding from everything and running away from it.
‘A doctor doing their job, I know they are very busy, they haven’t always got the time, but when they do get to see a patient, they need to see that patient.’
Dr Mittal was working at the Waterfield Practice in Bracknell when, on July 6 2018, she had a face-to-face consultation with Ms McDonald, an NHS patient, who reported having found a lump on her stomach and told the doctor she had a temperature of 36.6C
Dr Mittal, who now runs a practice in India, was contacted for comment and said she was appealing the case against her.
She had interim restrictions placed on her practice by the General Medical Council since February 2016, but these were replaced with an interim suspension following an interim orders tribunal (IOT) at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in June 2024, preventing her from practising and treating patients.
At a further IOT hearing on November 21 last year, the interim suspension was ordered to remain in place, subject to review.
A GMC spokesman said: ‘The GMC is investigating Dr Nupur Mittal. While this is ongoing Dr Mittal is interim suspended, which means she cannot treat patients.’
Bill Gates speaks during the Gates Foundation’s first global Goalkeepers event in the Nordics, which is being held in Stockholm, Sweden, Jan. 22, 2026.
TT News Agency | Stefan Jerrevang | Via Reuters
Bill Gates has become a source of controversy at this week’s high-profile India AI Impact Summit, as speculation around his planned keynote address ultimately ended with his withdrawal at the last minute.
The drama comes as the Microsoft co-founder receives public backlash for his past relationship with deceased financier and sex predator Jeffrey Epstein — with more details on the two men’s years of communications revealed in the Department of Justice’s file drop last month.
The Gates Foundation India on Thursday said the billionaire would skip the address “[a]fter careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities,” adding that he would be replaced by another foundation representative.
A spokesperson for Gates told CNBC separately that while he has acknowledged meeting Epstein was a serious error in judgment, he “unequivocally denies any improper conduct related to Epstein and the horrible activities in which Epstein was involved.”
“Mr. Gates never visited Epstein’s island, never attended parties with him, and had no involvement in any illegal activities associated with Epstein,” the spokesperson said.
The official announcement capped a back-and-forth saga that began earlier this week when local Indian media pointed out that Gates’ name had been removed from some of the summit’s public-facing materials.
Government sources later briefed the media that Gates was not expected to attend the event. However, the Gates Foundation issued a conflicting message on Wednesday, insisting that he was participating “as planned” before the recent reversal.
Asked about the controversy on Tuesday, India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters that Gates’ attendance would come down to “personal choices,” adding he “need not comment.” The summit organizers and the foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Gates’ absence.
The American tech leader turned philanthropist has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks following the release of millions of documents related to financier Jeffrey Epstein under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The files included a draft email written to himself in which Epstein suggests that he had helped facilitate extramarital affairs and sexual encounters for Gates, amongst other references of the Microsoft co-founder.
In an interview with Australia’s 9News last month, Gates denied any wrongdoing, commenting in relation to new files, calling Epstein’s allegations “absolutely absurd and completely false.”
He emphasized that his interactions with Epstein were limited to dinners aimed at potential philanthropy discussions, adding that he “never went to the island” and “never met any women.”
The New Delhi AI Impact Summit, where Gates had been scheduled to speak, has seen participation from leading tech names such as Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, besides a host of global leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The Gates Foundation has invested in India across health and development, and has also backed projects related to AI.
Canada’s justice department is fighting to prevent “sensitive” national security information from emerging at the upcoming murder trial of four Indian men accused of gunning down a B.C. Sikh leader in 2023.
In an application to the Federal Court, lawyers representing the Attorney General of Canada asked for permission to withhold some evidence at the prosecution of the alleged killers of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Court documents released to Global News do not specify which details they are seeking to keep confidential, but they argued that releasing them “would be injurious to international relations and national security.”
The case against the suspected killers of the Sikh temple president is being closely watched because of allegations the government of India ordered the murder as part of a campaign to silence its political opponents abroad.
The claims, first made public in September 2023 by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, set off a diplomatic rift between Canada and India. Ottawa later expel Indian diplomats and consular officials from the country.
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Since taking office, Prime Minister Mark Carney has reengaged with India and sought to expand trade relations. Canadian Sikhs have called that a betrayal, given India’s alleged targeting of them.
It is not unusual for federal lawyers to ask a judge to allow them to refrain from disclosing national security information in trials. Often, it occurs when the information in question was provided by a foreign agency.
“In Canada, the Attorney General has the power to apply to the Federal Court for an order to, in essence, protect certain types of information from being released publicly and to the defence,” said University of Calgary law professor Michael Nesbitt.
“Such applications are neither unusual nor uncommon, and are governed by law and court oversight, while the defence has the opportunity to challenge the application,” said Nesbitt, a leading national security law expert.
“We see this sort of application a lot in the anti-terrorism and national security realm, but often also with respect to cases where it is necessary to protect information associated with undercover operators, informants, or information received from Canada’s allies where such international cooperation has occurred.”
Canadian Justice officials filed their court application on Dec. 24, 2025.
A Department of Justice spokesperson said the Attorney General of Canada was seeking an order under a section of the Canada Evidence Act “confirming the prohibition of disclosure of certain information.”
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“We cannot provide further detail at this time.”
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The B.C. Prosecution Service, which is prosecuting the four accused, declined to comment on the Federal Court case. A spokesperson said the case was in the pretrial phase, which is subject to a publication ban.
Wiretap evidence sheds light on Nijjar murder
Nijjar was shot dead in his pickup truck on June 18, 2023, as he was leaving Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple. The RCMP believes India tapped mob boss Lawrence Bishnoi to arrange the killing.
In May 2024, the two suspected shooters, Amandeep Singh and Karanpreet Singh, the alleged getaway driver Karan Brar and a fourth suspect, Kamalpreet Singh, were arrested in Alberta and Ontario.
They have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Neither Lawrence Bishnoi, who is imprisoned in India, nor his Canadian lieutenant at the time, Goldy Brar, have been charged in the murder.
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The lawyers representing Amandeep Singh, Karanpreet Singh and Karan Brar, declined to comment on the matter. Kamalpreet Singh’s lawyer did not respond to emails from Global News.
India has said it has seen no evidence of its role in the plot.
India citizens Karan Brar, left to right, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh, as well as Amandeep Singh (not shown) have been charged with the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, RCMP
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A Canadian citizen who immigrated from India, Nijjar was a leader in the Khalistan separatist movement that seeks independence for India’s Sikh majority Punjab state. Although India called him a terrorist, he faced no charges in Canada.
At the time he was killed, Nijjar was organizing a symbolic referendum that asked members of the Sikh diaspora if they supported Khalistan independence. The other suspected targets of India’s campaign were also mostly Khalistan activists.
The initial tip implicating high-level Indian officials in the killing came from communications intercepted by the United Kingdom and shared with Canada by British intelligence, sources have told Global News.
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Conversations mentioning targets in Canada were also picked up by the FBI during its investigation into a similar plot in which an Indian intelligence officer hired a criminal to kill a pro-Khalistan activist in the U.S.
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Such intelligence is often shared with allies on the understanding that it cannot be used in court, said national security law expert Leah West, an associate professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa.
“It is typical, in cases where the police receive information from other intelligence services during an investigation, for the Attorney General to seek to have that information protected from disclosure,” she said.
“The basis for seeking to withhold it is referred to as national security privilege. The argument for that is that if disclosed, the information could reveal means and methods, investigative interests, or personnel of the service and doing so would be detrimental to Canadian national security.”
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A judge has to confirm the privilege, she said. In addition, the information in question can’t be used against an accused, and anything that could point to the innocence of a defendant must be disclosed, she added.
State actors such as China, India and Iran have long sought to intimidate and silence members of Canada’s diaspora communities, a practice known as transnational repression.
“Transnational repression is emerging as one of the most serious yet least understood threats to security and democracy in Canada,” said a report released on Tuesday by the Montreal Institute for Global Security.
“As foreign states increasingly target individuals on Canadian soil, through intimidation, surveillance, digital harassment, coercion of family members abroad, and, in some cases, plans for physical harm, Canada faces a challenge that strikes at the core of its democratic values and institutions.”
The logo of the Adani Group is seen on the facade of its Corporate House on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, November 21, 2024.
Amit Dave | Reuters
India’s Adani on Tuesday announced plans to invest $100 billion to develop renewable energy-powered AI-ready data centers by 2035, seeking to establish the world’s largest integrated data center platform.
The blockbuster investment, which comes as India pushes to gain a stronger foothold in the global AI race, is expected to create a $250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India over the next decade, Adani said.
The initiative is also poised to incentivize an additional $150 billion in spending across server manufacturing, sovereign cloud platforms, and supporting industries, the company said.
“The world is entering an Intelligence Revolution more profound than any previous Industrial Revolution,” Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group, said in a statement.
“India will not be a mere consumer in the AI age. We will be the creators, the builders and the exporters of intelligence and we are proud to be able to participate in that future,” he added.
The announcement coincides with India’s AI Impact Summit, a five-day event which got underway on Monday.
Global leaders and technology executives such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are expected to take part in the summit, which has been billed as the first major international AI meeting hosted in the Global South.
Shares of Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of Adani Group, rose 2.3% on the news, making it one of the top gainers on the benchmark Nifty 50 stock index. Shares of Adani Green Energy were last seen up 1.8%.
Strategic partnership
Adani’s AI push is designed to build on AdaniConnex’s existing 2 gigawatt (GW) national data center, with plans to expand toward a 5 GW target. It is this deployment that the company says will create the world’s largest integrated data center platform.
AdaniConnex is a joint venture between Adani Group and EdgeConnex, a global data center provider.
Adani said its vision is supported by its strategic partnerships with Google. The multinational conglomerate added that it was also in talks with other major players to establish large-scale campuses across India, without providing further details.
Google’s parent company Alphabet said in October that it would invest $15 billion over the next five years to build an AI data center hub in southern India.
Shares of Adani Group companies have been volatile in recent weeks.
Indeed, the firm’s stocks fell sharply after court filings late last month showed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to send a summons to Indian billionaire and Adani Group chair Gautam Adani and nephew Sagar Adani on charges of bribery and fraud.
Adani’s chariman was indicted with seven other men in New York federal court in November 2024 on charges related to a massive bribery and fraud scheme. CNBC reached out to Adani Group and the U.S. SEC following the news.
India’s Ministry of Law and Justice twice refused last year to deliver the summons to Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani under the Hague Convention, the SEC told the court.
— CNBC’s Priyanka Salve contributed to this report.
An Indian man charged with orchestrating an unsuccessful alleged Indian government-backed plot to kill a Sikh separatist in New York City pleaded guilty on Friday to three criminal charges, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said.
Nikhil Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 40 years in prison, the spokesperson said.
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Gupta entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court.
Lawyers for Gupta were not immediately available for comment. Gupta has been jailed in Brooklyn since his June 2024 extradition to the United States from the Czech Republic, where he had been arrested a year earlier. He had pleaded not guilty immediately after his extradition.
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U.S. prosecutors accused Gupta of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. resident and dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.
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India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy.
The discovery of alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the United States and Canada has tested relations with India, which has also denied involvement in such plots.
