Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng says she has been stopped from coming to Hyderabad for Bharat Summit

Screenshot from video posted by Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng (X/@HelleLyngSvends) on November 11, 2026, in which she says that her visa to visit India was “cancelled”.

Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng, who works for the Oslo-based daily newspaper Dagsavisen, has said that she has been stopped from coming to India despite having a valid visa.

“I got a visa to India and was supposed to leave this morning to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad. I had been invited as a panellist and speaker on the future of media and press freedom. But «orders from above» in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa,” she said in a post on X, on Wednesday (November 11, 2026).

“I was supposed to speak on media, press freedom and democracy and how they are intertwined,” she spoke in the video message where she puts the onus on India’s Home Minister Amit Shah to let her come as 48 hours are still there for her session.

I got a visa to India and was supposed to leave this morning to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad. I had been invited as a panelist and speaker on the future of media and press freedom. But «orders from above» in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa. Here is my message for @AmitShah

She linked the refusal to let her into India to the freedom of press question she posed in Norway to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2026.

Ms. Lyng has been listed as a speaker on Day 2 of the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad on November 14 in a session that will have Leonard Novy, director, Institute for Media and Communications, Sangeeta Baruah Pisharoty, president of the Press Club of India and Francesco Lapenta director of Institute of Future and Innovation Studies. The session will be moderated by Pawan Khera, MP and chairperson of INC Communications.

The Indian Embassy in Norway has not released any statement about the denial of permission. “The embassy in Norway is not at fault. They were truly nice and helpful during the process. It is the Ministry of Home Affairs that has ruined the trip by denying me entry even though I have gotten a visa and had political clearance for the conference,” she wrote in another social media past.