New Delhi, April 24: Narendra Modi is likely to address his first news conference in Delhi as Prime Minister on May 26, when he completes a year in office.

"He is open to the idea. Things are moving positively," a high-level government source said.

Modi wants the event held at the main conference hall of the National Media Centre, but since it can accommodate 400 delegates at most, he is being advised to consider the capacious auditorium of Vigyan Bhavan.

The billing the event is likely to get, not just in the national but also in the foreign media, is bound to draw a huge turnout. The Vigyan Bhavan auditorium can take over 1, 000, the source said.

For the nearly 12 months that he has been in Delhi, Modi - who was not media-friendly even as Gujarat chief minister - has virtually shunned scribes here, except the occasional sound bites outside Parliament.

He broke with the practice last year when he met editors and journalists in small batches four times at his residence. The pre-condition was that nothing spoken at 7 Race Course Road would be reported. Modi made an exception this year when he gave an interview to a leading English daily of Delhi.

Political sources said the first anniversary of the Modi government was being "celebrated" against the backdrop of a mixed record. The sources said the government was waiting for that "pivotal" moment when the messages it sought to put across through the year would fructify into a "milepost" impinging on people's lives and fortunes.

But regardless of whether the first-year crowning point has been attained, the sources said Modi was "mentally" prepared to face the Delhi media, which has by turns been kind and merciless towards him in the past.

Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh - pejoratively dubbed by detractors as " Maunmohan (silent)" Singh - had a more impressive track record. Four months after taking charge in 2004, he held a news conference at Vigyan Bhavan, the first by a Prime Minister in 10 years. None of the incumbents from 1996 to 2004 - H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajpayee - had held a structured news conference.

Singh had revived a tradition that went back to the Nehru era when the Prime Minister addressed journalists once a year. Nehru's daughter Indira kept up the tradition, although she had a reputation for being cutting with the press. Rajiv Gandhi was fairly regular, until he was singed by the Bofors controversy.

Modi, who was accessible and candid with the media when he was a BJP general secretary, began avoiding journalists after the 2002 Gujarat riots that took place on his watch. He hosted Diwali dos for the Gandhinagar media but did not make even small talk at such gatherings.

In 2014, a similar reception was held at the BJP office after the festival. Modi was present. He personally greeted every guest, posed for selfies, but said nothing.

Also, Modi's predecessors took big media contingents along on foreign visits. Even the reticent Vajpayee opened up while flying. Modi broke with the practice of taking large delegations. But the small clutch of Doordarshan and AIR journalists has no means of touching base with him.