Russia is a strong and reliable friend of India and both countries have a “truly strategic” partnership, Prime Minister 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.
Mr. Modi, who is on a two-day visit here, conveyed to Mr. 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, Mr. Modi and Mr. Putin held a one-on-one meeting before they were joined by their delegations. The two sides continued their deliberations over lunch at the Kremlin.
ADVERTISEMENT
“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,” the Prime Minister said.
Mr. Putin, in his opening remarks, 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.”
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The Russian President said at the Summit talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Thursday that the bilateral relations were developing in all directions — in international politics, economy and the humanitarian area, he was quoted as saying by the 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 $ 10 billion to $30 billion in the next 10 years.
The Prime Minister also mentioned about death of a Russian pilot in downing of a Russian plane on the Syrian border.
Mr. Modi expressed condolence over the death of Russian citizens in a plane crash in Egypt in October.
“I would like to express my condolences in connection with the recent developments in Egypt and Turkey, when a Russian pilot and innocent Russian citizens died. This was a great tragedy and the entire people of India were with Russia during these difficult moments,” he said.
“Despite the various global problems, despite the confrontation against Russia, you have raised your country, your state to a qualitatively new level. Russia proudly moves along its own development path and I commend you personal leadership in this process,” Mr. Modi was quoted as saying by Kremlin.
He also mentioned about Atal Bihari Vajpayee under whose Prime Ministership the tradition of annual summits between the two countries was “born”. “These annual summits have raised Indian-Russian relations to a new level.”
Modi visits state-of-the-art crisis management centre
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday visited Russia’s premier crisis management centre which deals with emergency situations and ensures coordination among various relevant agencies.
Mr. Modi spent around half-an-hour at the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC), popularly known as EMERCOM, the short form of Emergency Control Ministry.
He was briefed about the round-the-clock functioning of the various wings of the agency.
“A morning for learning. PM @narendramodi takes a tour of EMERCOM, a state-of-the-art crisis management facility ready for emergency response. In all 2,40,000 employees from EMERCOM are on operational duty daily, using 62,000 equipment units,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.
The NCMC is a multi-level coordination centre designed to provide inter-agency coordination and alert the people about the thre
Real time monitoring
The capabilities of the NCMC include state-of-art real time monitoring, data collection, analysis and modelling.
It uses global navigation satellite systems and global monitoring technologies based on remote sensing to provide real time data and assistance to people as well as various agencies during emergency situations.
The NCMC processes information from across Russia and is capable of monitoring industrial facilities, crowded areas, tsunami threats, other natural disasters etc.