Russia’s Putin hosts Indian PM for talks on defense, energy

They also agreed that ONGC may increase its stake in the Rosneft subsidiary Vankorneft after already buying 15 percent, and Rosneft and Oil India signed an accord on possible onshore projects in Russian Federation.

The PM further informed that India and Russian Federation were together working on nuclear energy and contributing towards solving the issue of global warming.

During this visit, a raft of agreements spanning a broad spectrum of sectors are expected to be signed following summit-level talks on Thursday between the two countries with trade being a major focus area.

He said India’s GDP has clocked an impressive 7.4 per cent growth and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international agencies have projected this growth momentum to continue.

The Prime Minister’s engagements in Moscow also include addressing a gathering of “Friends of India” and around 3,000 people are expected to attend the event tomorrow.

Russian business daily Kommersant said this week that Putin’s one-on-one talks with Modi would decide the fate of the deal as the two still needed to sort out pricing disagreements.

Putin hosted Modi in Moscow for the annual bilateral summit after visiting New Delhi past year.

He also stated there would be extensive deliberations with President Putin.

The close defense partnership between Russian Federation and India goes back decades, and Moscow enjoyed a near-monopoly on arms sales to India shortly before the Soviet Union’s fall.

In this context, they welcomed the agreement reached on liberalization of the travel regime for the businessmen of both the countries and called for its effective implementation.

Putin said Russian Federation is preparing to start building another two atomic reactors and intends to build 12 nuclear reactors in India over 20 years, according to an earlier agreement.

Expressing his gratitude to President Putin for the warm welcome to the entire Indian delegation, the Prime Minister said: “Since you came to power as President and Mr Vajpayee became Prime Minister of India [Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Indian Prime Minister between 1998 and 2002], the tradition of annual summits was born”. “Out of 200 Kamovs, some 60 will be made in Russian Federation and the remaining will be assembled and manufactured in India under the public private partnership mode”.

However no progress was announced on an anticipated purchase of S-400 missiles, Russia’s top-of-the-line anti-aircraft defence systems.

“We are certain that it is in the interests of the world community to form a wide anti-terrorist coalition operating on the basis of worldwide law and under the auspices of the United Nations”, Putin said.