PM Modi attends 16th Indo-Russia annual summit

Russia is a strong and reliable friend of India and both countries have a truly strategic partnership, PM Narendra Modi on Thursday told President Vladimir Putin at the annual summit talks as the two sides negotiated major deals in defence, energy and other key areas.

PM Modi, who was on a two-day Russia visit, conveyed to Putin that their summit talks would give a fresh impetus to the bilateral relations as it would provide "new energy" to further strengthen ties. As part of the 16th annual India-Russia Summit, Modi and Putin held a one-on-one meeting before they were joined by their respective delegations. The two sides continued their deliberations over lunch at the Kremlin.

"India and Russia have a long history of cultural relations. And now we have a strong and reliable friend on the political and international arena - Russia. Russia has always been with us in hard times. We have a strategic partnership, a true strategic partnership," Modi said. 

Putin, in his opening remarks during his meeting with Modi, said, "I am pleased to note, and I am happy to do that, that we are consistently and confidently developing the privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia." The bilateral relations were developing in all directions -- in international politics, economy and the humanitarian area, he was quoted as saying by the state-run TASS news agency. Ways to expand economic cooperation between the two countries were also explored in the meeting with both countries aiming to take the current bilateral annual trade of USD 10 billion to USD 30 billion in the next 10 years. Putin said Unit-II of the Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu, being built by Russia, would be commissioned within weeks and negotiations are at an advanced staged for units III and IV. 

India and Russia have decided to expand cooperation in various sectors.  Some of the important were following.

• “The Inter-Governmental Agreement on the manufacture of Kamov-226 helicopters in India is the first project for a major defence platform under the Make-in-India mission. It is, rightly, with our most important defence partner.”
• “They agreed to actively work towards localisation of manufacturing in India under the aegis of “Make in India” and in tandem with the serial construction of nuclear power plants,” said the statement. 
• The cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy is a cornerstone of the Russia-India strategic partnership.

This time, with Putin by his side, Modi stressed on the need for the world to unite against terrorism “without distinction and discrimination between terrorist groups and target countries”, in an apparent reference to Pakistan. Sharing concern over terrorism, the two sides pressed for a joint fight against the global menace “without selectivity and double standards”, the joint statement said. Wrapping up the talks, Modi said that just like he visited Russia twice this year, he looked forward to welcoming Putin in India next year for the BRICS Summit as well as the Annual Summit.

Another key outcome of this summit is that Russia plans to build at least six nuclear plants in India in the next 20 years along with offering important deals like the jointly producing BrahMos missiles and the Kamov-226 fighter jets, an impeccable boost to the central government’s Make-in-India initiative.

India on the other has extended its hands to top Russian companies to invest in Indian infrastructure, aerospace sectors and business sectors as present Indian business environment seems to be favourable for investment. A programme of action has been agreed between India’s Department of Atomic Energy and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) to localize manufacturing of Russian-designed nuclear reactor units in India. This thus gives significant amount of importance to Russian nuclear imports in India apart from the US and Israel.

As reported earlier, both New Delhi and Moscow have common agendas towards global counter-terrorism and at the United Nations as well, both country have a strong equal understanding, the same they share in BRICS, East Asia Summit, G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India has long considered Russia to be a ‘reliable friend’ so President Putin has stated that Russia strongly supports India’s bid for a permanent membership at the UN Security Council saying that India is a ‘deserving and strong candidate” that could bring an “independent and responsible approach” within the organization.

A joint statement revealed that both the countries are keen to strengthen their cultural cooperation by organizing a Russian cultural festival in India in 2016. Also, the two countries asserted on the need of deepening cooperation in the information sphere as well with memorandum of understanding (MoU) being signed between Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK and Prasar Bharati to exchange news and other content.