India and Japan Sign Defence Deals

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India last week, it was announced that Japan will be a partner in Malabar Naval Exercises, taking it from a bilateral naval exercise between India and the United States to a trilateral level on a permanent basis.

Moving towards making India's dream for a bullet train come true, an agreement to build a high speed rail network between Mumbai-Ahmedabad was signed. Modi, who has been looking to Tokyo to pump in capital to overhaul the country's infrastructure, said "this enterprise will launch a revolution in India's railways and speed up India's journey into the future".

"No less historic is the decision to introduce High Speed Rail on Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector through Shinkansen known for speed, reliability, safety", Modi said while appreciating Abe's Rs extraordinary package' on very easy terms.

Under the two security deals, India and Japan will share defense technology, military equipment and information, while under the civil nuclear deal, both countries made a decision to work on cooperation.

India has been trying to upgrade its military equipment and a potential defense agreement to sell US-2 amphibious aircraft to India could turn out to be Japan's first major military sale after it lifted a postwar ban on the export of defense equipment in 2014.

REUTERS Rupak De Chowdhuri Commuters stand at an open doorway of a suburban train during the morning rush hour in Kolkata India

During his visit here, Abe visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency, Varanasi, accompanied by his Indian counterpart. Japan's trade with India is about 5 percent of its commerce with China, and less than 25 percent of India-China trade.

India needs nuclear technology to boost the energy supply to its fast-expanding economy, while keeping its carbon emissions-already the world's fourth-largest-under control.

Modi said that the Indian government would actively consider all the recommendations of the Forum. He said the pact will help the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and GE Energy Inc to do nuclear business in India as both have Japanese investments.

Asked about issues relating to reprocessing, he said any solution to the issue with Japan will be in consonance with India's long-standing policy.

"The two prime ministers reiterated their unwavering commitment to realize a peaceful, open, equitable, stable and rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific region..." The agreement provides India not just over 80 per cent of the total project cost, but also technical assistance to build domestic capacity to manufacture coaches and tracks before making them operational. Today there is a Make in India movement in Japan with a $12 billion fund, said PM Modi.

India and Japan on Saturday signed an MoU on civil nuclear energy, with the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) not a hindrance to the negotiation, as per the Ministry of External Affairs. Beijing "always believes that under the premise of honoring global nuclear non-proliferation obligations, all countries are entitled to make peaceful use of nuclear energy and conduct relevant worldwide cooperation in a way that uphold the authority and effectiveness of the worldwide nuclear non-proliferation regime".