Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi defeated a vote of no-confidence taken by the opposition over his handling of a deadly ethnic conflict in Manipur.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a clear majority of 301 members in the 542-seat lower house of parliament, so the no-confidence vote will not impact its stability.

Currently, India's Hindus, Muslims, Christians and large tribal populations follow their own personal laws and customs, alongside an optional secular code, for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.

The State Department raised concerns over treatment of Muslims, Hindu Dalits, Christians and other religious minorities in India while also listing a crackdown on journalists.

Modi's meeting with Musk came days after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey accused India of threatening to shut down the platform for not complying with content takedown orders during a 2020-2021 protest.

The BJP has applied its muscular brand of Hindu politics to Karnataka as it attempts to make further inroads in the south of the country of 1.4 billion people, where other parties have long held sway.

Gandhi was convicted over comments deemed to be insulting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other people surnamed Modi.

The tax raids in February had come close on the heels of the release of a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership of the state of Gujarat during riots in 2002.

In January, India ordered the blocking of a BBC documentary which questioned Modi's leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying that even sharing of any clips via social media was barred.

Press freedom in the world's biggest democracy has suffered during Modi's tenure, rights activists say.

Modi campaigned hard in Gujarat, the state where he was chief minister for 12 years before ascending to become prime minister in 2014, and which voted on Dec 1 and 5.

Modi remains widely popular in the country, partly due to economic growth and also because of his strong base among India's Hindu majority population.