By Ankit Panda
Modi used Putin’s trip to New Delhi to emphasize India’s continued commitment to Russia.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi on Thursday for a scheduled one-day annual summit. The trend of annual bilateral leaders summits between Russia and India goes back to 2000. Each meeting alternates between New Delhi and Moscow.
This year, the talks primarily concerned the expansion of India-Russia bilateral ties in areas such as energy, trade, and defense. Putin’s visit to India also comes at a time when Russia finds itself isolated by much of the West over its support for anti-government rebels in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea in early 2014. Additionally, with an economy facing potential long-term crisis over falling global oil prices, Putin is keen to close deals with Russia’s large Asian partners such as India and China.
As I wrote yesterday, the conditions of Modi’s meeting with Putin are somewhat complicated by India’s change in government this year and new trends in Indian foreign policy. Where India’s previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government was content to privilege its relations with Russia over its relations with the West (especially when it came to defense cooperation), Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government has pragmatically expanded India’s cooperation on defense and other issues with the United States and other countries. In 2014, more of India’s defense imports came from the United States than from Russia.
Read the full story at The Diplomat