On 6th of December Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed Russian president Vladimir Putin on his brief visit to India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it’s a reflection of the latter’s commitment to ties with India. Well, this is Mr Putin’s second overseas trip since the Covid pandemic began. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin discussed many important points and shared their views on a variety of topics. Out of all those topics to give you a shot summary, here’s your 10-points to this big story:
“Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, there has been no change in the relationship between India and Russia,” Prime Minister Modi said at the 21st India-Russia summit that covered a series of areas. The discussion took place intending to further improvise the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries. This annual summit is held alternately in India and Russia. Both the countries signed 28 agreements, including government-to-government pacts, in a variety of areas.
The Prime Minister made a point that both the countries cooperated well during the Covid pandemic as well as in other fields such as vaccine and humanitarian support. “You should be credited for the strategic partnership between our countries for the three decades,” the Indian PM Modi said during the India-Russia summit that took place hours after the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries held their inaugural ”2+2” dialogue. This conversation took place intending to widen the ambit of discussions which are based on the strategically important issues taking place around.
Rajanth Singh, Union Defence Minister took a big dig and stated quite some things about China at the “2+2” meeting along with his Russian counterpart. Rajanth Singh thus accused Beijing for the unprovoked aggression, and he further said India is on the lookout for “sensitive and responsive” partners.
The Indian Prime Minister also mentioned cooperation in the economic sector, under which both countries are adopting a long-term vision. “To achieve the aims of this partnership, we need to encourage our business leaders,” PM Narendra Modi added.
While referring to the evolution in geopolitics and pointing out the change in the fundamentals in world politics, PM Modi said that the India-Russia friendship has been constant and is going smooth till now, despite all such variables. “Both countries have assisted each other and also taken care of each other’s sensitivities,” PM Modi said.
Mr Putin described India as a “great power” and “a time-tested friend”. This summit is the first in-person meet that has happened between the two leaders since they met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in 2019, conducted in Brasilia. The Russian President had skipped both the G20 and COP26 summits this year.
The Russian President said the trade decreased by 17 per cent last year but has increased by 30 per cent this year in the first nine months, while referring to bilateral trade.
“We are working on very promising sectors, including energy and space. We are also working and cooperating in areas of military and technology,” Mr Putin said.
The Russian President said the two countries will continue to cooperate on the global agenda, as he said, “We are naturally concerned about everything related to terrorism, terror funding, and drug trafficking and that is why we are naturally concerned about the situation in Afghanistan,” he added.
Mentioning that the two countries have held joint military exercises in both Indian and Russian territories, he said that Russia aims to work further on this matter.
