PM Narendra Modi with President Vladimir Putin, PIB/Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi on Friday, discussing trade and energy ties ahead of the BRICS Summit.
During the meeting, Modi gifted Putin a Russian translation of the Thirukkural, a classical Tamil text, saying it would help deepen people-to-people ties.
The Thirukkural is a two-thousand-year-old work of 1,330 couplets attributed to the Tamil poet-saint Thiruvalluvar.
The bilateral talks covered trade, industry, energy, mobility and critical resources, alongside rail sector and steel value chain cooperation.
Putin arrived in New Delhi ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit, which India is hosting from September 12 to 13.
PM Modi said he was confident people-to-people contact between India and Russia would grow with the availability of the Thirukkural in Russian translation.
The bilateral discussions were expected to cover trade, industry, energy, mobility and critical resources, alongside deeper industrial cooperation.
Talks reportedly touched on plans related to INNOPROM participation in India, as well as collaboration in the rail sector and the steel value chain.
Business-to-business opportunities between Indian and Russian companies were also on the agenda during the wide-ranging talks.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, with several other world leaders also arriving in Delhi over the same period.
Security for the summit period has been tightened significantly across Delhi, with thousands of personnel deployed and airspace restrictions in effect.
India-Russia relations span decades of defence, energy and diplomatic cooperation, with the two countries holding regular bilateral summits.
The two leaders have met on multiple occasions in recent years, both at bilateral summits and on the sidelines of multilateral forums such as BRICS and the SCO.
Officials from both sides were expected to hold follow-up working-level discussions in the weeks after the summit to translate the leaders’ talks into concrete agreements.
India has traditionally balanced its ties with Russia alongside its relationships with Western partners, a dynamic that continues to shape its foreign policy approach.
PM Narendra Modi with President Vladimir Putin, PIB/Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
