From the Nehru-Bulganin-Khrushchev exchange visits of 1955-1956 down to the present, New Delhi and Moscow have kept up a special partnership that has lasted more than half a century and is perhaps unique in the annals of world diplomacy. Barring the barren years of the Yeltsin period soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, India has had a greater and more sustained comfort level in political dealings with Russia than with any other world power. For the Russian side too, India has been a dependable partner whose value has been both political and economic. In commercial terms, the recent visits to India of U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao may have yielded a bigger and more immediate harvest. But the 30 agreements signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Dmitry Medvedev, will, if fully implemented, pave the way for full-spectrum progress across a range of key sectors from nuclear energy and hydrocarbons to R&D, pharmaceuticals, and information technology. The latest visit also produced a welcome first easing in visa restrictions for business and transit travellers.
In the civil nuclear field, Russia has been the fastest off the block ever since the Nuclear Suppliers Group voted to exempt India from its export restrictions. Contractual negotiations are currently under way for the third and fourth reactors at Koodankulam but have been held up by lack of clarity on costs, financing and, to a lesser extent, liability. The Russian side is on record saying the stringent nature of the Indian liability law is not a major obstacle. But they are likely to remain in a ‘wait and watch' mode to see whether India makes any concessions on this front to the United States before themselves signing on the dotted line. Though the contractual talks between the commercial entities of both sides are technical and not political, their smooth conclusion will send an important signal to both France and the U.S., who maintain that the Indian liability law is a major deterrent for their own vendors. Beyond this issue, the India-Russia statement has given a further push to the joint development of a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. While this means the Indian Air Force will eventually acquire a technologically advanced aircraft as good as any being developed in the U.S. or Europe, care must be taken to keep development and manufacturing costs down and ensure sufficient diffusion of knowhow so that India's own capabilities in aircraft design and manufacturing are enhanced through this process.
Keywords: India-Russia relations, Medvedev, Manmohan Singh
Comments:
As always, patronizing sales-talk has paid off for Russia. On our own we are yet to come up even with a Light Combat aircraft (LCA) -- are we in any way capable to meaningfully contribute to the design of 5th-gen aircraft? The Russian design will be forced down our throats and since we are planning for decades ahead, price hikes, delays, snags, design bugs (all these are nauseatingly regular with the Russians) will follow. Perhaps the "very special partnership" was not enough to overcome the liability issue for nuclear plants - for the existing Kudankulam plants, the Russians carry NO liability. Despite the backstabbing during the 1962 war, a steep price has been again paid for 'a very special partnership'.
You state."In the civil nuclear field, Russia has been the fastest off the block ever since the Nuclear Suppliers Group voted to exempt India from its export restrictions.' You omit to mention that for the Kudankulam plant, the Russians carry NO liability. If such leniency were shown to other nations, India would have had a dozen nuclear plants.
While the editorial has aptly highlighted the positive outcomes of President Medvedev's visit to India, it fails to touch upon why India's longstanding relationship with Russia does not get translated into assured results. It is true that both the countries agreed to co-operate on a broad spectrum of areas and also to give a definitive push to their economic and strategic partnership. However one look at the joint declaration is enough to understand that the potential of trade and cooperation between the two countries falls way short of being fully exploited. For example, the two countries have talked about raising the bilateral trade to 20 billion dollars over the next five years from about 7 billion dollars now. With China, on the other hand, India has talked about doubling the bilateral trade to 100 billion dollars by 2015 from the present 50 billion dollars now. Compared to Russia, India entered into an economic partnership with China much later but the bilateral trade between the two countries has grown at a scorching pace. This is when a number of contentious issues continue to plague the Indo-China relations. Russia too has a much bigger volume of trade with China or European Union. India's close proximity with China might be one of the reasons for its growing relationship but it still does not explain the exceptionally low volume of trade between India and Russia. Perhaps one of the reasons why the strong historical links between the two countries have not been able to manifest themselves in the form of trade and business is India's steady diversion towards USA for its economic and strategic needs. In fact as was pointed out by The Hindu in one of its editorials, both India and Russia have tended to ignore each other when they are enjoying good relations with USA. But when relations are unhelpful, the tend to come closer to each other. India and Russia share a unique and enviable history and their friendship has stood the test of time. It is in the interest of both the countries not to let their relations with a third country affect this friendship. It is also imperative that both nations work to iron out the issues that bedevil their relationship. New Delhi and Moscow must understand that there is tremendous potential waiting to be harnessed and the enormous benefits it can bring to people of both the countries. Both the countries must work to achieve this goal.
As rightly stated in the editorial,we can see that the visit of president Medvedev and the agreements made are practical and its a win-win outcome i feel that the both the country's opinions are synchrony-sing.If there has to be any good bilateral relation b/w the two countries then their ideas should match.Then only we can get the more positive and promising results(unlike U.S and china visit).so this relation b/w India and Russia is really "SPECIAL".