French President Francoise Hollande’s working end of the State visit on Thursday was high on symbolism but yielded little in terms of contracts.
As Mr. Hollande put it at a news conference later in the day, he was sure India was committed to all big ticket deals that are in the pipeline and his purpose was to showcase French companies in India and ask India Inc to step up investments in his country.
As most major deals are in the defence sector (the civil nuclear deal for the Jaitapur plant being an exception) and with allegations of graft in an Indian deal with Italy the focus of investigations, Mr. Hollande promised that France’s transactions with India in this respect will be above board.
The newly-elected French President is making his first visit to an emerging country, with diplomatic sources pointing out that Paris opted for India over Brazil, Russia and South Africa. It is also his first to a large Asian country.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Hollande held talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during which the two sides decided to give economic ties a push following disappointing results to the earlier plan to boost trade.
In the field of energy, the two leaders expressed satisfaction over ongoing collaborative projects in R&D on peaceful uses of nuclear energy and agreed to further strengthen bilateral civil nuclear scientific cooperation.
India and France had signed a MoU in 2009 for the setting up six nuclear reactor units at Jaitapur. With both sides stating their position, they hoped for the expeditious conclusion of the negotiations.
On defence, Dr. Singh and Mr. Hollande reiterated their desire to cooperate in high technology programmes and projects in the sector, which would include joint research and development and transfer of technology. In this connection, they noted that the projects for the Scorpene submarine and upgrade of Mirage 2000 are moving forward and steps are being taken for early finalisation of the SRSAM (Short Range Surface to Air Missile) project.
Both sides noted the progress of ongoing negotiations on the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) programme and look forward to their conclusion. The leaders reaffirmed their interest in continuing the cooperation in combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and other areas.
To give an impetus to the cooperation in railways, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Railways and SNCF (French National Railways) was among the several MoUs signed. On the economic side, they decided “to establish an annual bilateral dialogue between the two Finance Ministries on economic and financial issues.’’
Diplomatic sources said that notwithstanding the fact that India and France had been negotiating for more than a year, Rafael’s closest competitor, the four-nation Eurofighter had given up hopes of a re-contest. Indications from Germany, the lead country for the India contract, show it is in no mood to imperil the wider Franco-German bonhomie for this tender.
Keywords: India-France ties, bilateral relations, Francois Hollande, Hollande's India visit, Manmohan Singh, nuclear deals
This is a great opportunity for India to bargain hard with the French,as
their economy is in real danger.India may boost their economy with its
money..but it should come with a cost of hard bargaining not in terms of
finances but also in technological advances. GOI should talk extensively
to the scientific community of their requirements.
Journalists and Wikileaks must investigate the reasons for failure of indigenous LCA Tejas fighter and involvement of the PM Manmohan Singh in it. A spate of suicides of HAL Tejas officials and DRDO cover up must be investigated. Tejas was deliberately failed for political kickbacks and corruption. India is a country where ISRO scientists are involved in dubious Devas-Antrix deal.
There is nothing to be glad about. Common man has nothing to do with
missiles, fighter jets and more weaponization. Some may argue that it
will boost the country's defense. But, India can develop many such
defense technologies indigenously if we utilize the pool of engineers
and science graduates that we produce every year.
Wow what a complete waste of money, just helping France recover from a recession. Firstly because India rarely uses its vast stock of weaponry when they need to, think back to kargil, India should have used its superior airpower to drive off the Pak army, secondly the weaponry will stay in the warehouse and become outdated, thirdly France will probably sell something to Pakistan to counter what it has sold to India. This way France makes money from Indo-Pak rivalry.
how will we make sure that there is no bribe involved in this?
Has Manmohan singh decided to "wipe out" India's wealth before he leaves the office? None of the corruption scandals has been solved and here we go again! I can literally smell another scandal brewing behind this deal.
This outgoing UPA government should not have signed this missile deal as it can be interpreted by people as source of funding for Elections2014 in the present circumstances of Augusta deal with elections only in less than an year.
Anyway congress does not have the guts for retaliate in borders, then why bother spending money for defence. May be french are doing clear-up sale ?
Infact India could loan the french straight away as euro improvement (Japan does have problem with china on territories, but they are not investing on military are they ?)
Wow! 10 billion dollars of protection money. One cannot believe Indians
cant built jets and other equipment on their own...This is politics and
diplomacy at its best!
The prime minister is now at the fag end of his tenure. He has failed
to exercise his authority despite being the topmost constitutional head
of this country. It is not enough being himself honest and he is the
Prime Minister over 1 billion population of this country. Before he lay
down his office to the chances of crown prince must do something to
save the country from the corruption. He cannot look the other way. Or
else history will not forgive him. Beware of congress party they
abandoned the late PM Narasimha Rao for the demolition of Babri Mazid
and who knows what will be in store for Manmohan, the PM.
This is a good opportunity to get French Technology. Russian
Technology is not sophisticated and tends to be crude at times.
American Technology has many clauses binding it's use and
maintenance. French Technology may avoid all this. Before W II
France was quite advanced but later WW II pushed them back and
today they are just coming up. This technology may help our
scientists in a big way.
I request our Govt not to make any decision at this point. Let us first investigate chopper deal and clean our system step by step.
France's economy is in red since 2007, Its desperately need Indian money. Whereas past track record & shoddy defense deals suggests that Indian politicians are looking it as scope to take money in the form of bribe through some hidden channel.
European economy is in a mess. They want to sell their planes and make some money besides create jobs for their people. Our Politicians and military officials go ahead and take bribes and sign these deals. It is a win - win situation for all except us the tax payers in India.
When the major cost negotiations are held, why not record the same and or put in online so that it is open. Also the kickbacks and decreasing quality of even defence is really bad for our country.
With Augusta deal making hot news around, I wonder if i would be seeing
an almost similar event making it to the news in near future....
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