'wget' call had nonzero exit status - R - Linux RHEL 7 - r

Question

I try installing some required packages in R, which I just installed on a Linux machine. I am unable to install any package and get the below warning:
> install.packages("mongolite", repos="https://cran.r-project.org", lib="/opt/app/workload/deployments/installables/R-3.5.0/Rpackages")
^C
^CWarning: unable to access index for repository https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib:
'wget' call had nonzero exit status
Warning message:
package ‘mongolite’ is not available (for R version 3.5.0)
I had to press ^+c after waiting for about 30 mins.
The same is the case with 'curl', but without the wait of 30 mins.
The following is the output of sessionInfo():
> sessionInfo()
R version 3.5.0 (2018-04-23)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.4 (Maipo)
Matrix products: default
BLAS: /.../R-3.5.0/lib/libRblas.so
LAPACK: /.../R-3.5.0/lib/libRlapack.so
locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C
[3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
[5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C
[9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.5.0 tools_3.5.0
>
I am unable to understand what is blocking the packages to be installed. Please help.
Thank you