Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin met again in New Delhi today, following up on their meeting at the Bishkek SCO meeting just two weeks earlier. Putin was accompanied by 12 top officials, including various cabinet ministers, aides, the heads of Russia’s state space, nuclear, and energy companies, and others. Modi began the meeting by presenting Putin a Russian-language edition of Thirukkural, a book written 2,000 years ago in India by poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar.
From there, their discussions ranged from detailed discussion of “progress in bilateral cooperation in political, economic, defense, energy, space, skill mobility and people-to- people domains,” to their respective views “on India-Russia engagement in the multilateral sphere,” including in the BRICS and “shared perspectives on key regional and global issues of mutual interest, including the conflicts in West Asia and the Black Sea region which have impacted maritime trade and the safety and security of Indian seafarers,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs [reported](https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases?dtl/41766/Prime_Minister_meets_with_the_President_of_the_Russian_Federation_on_the_sidelines_of_BRICS_Summit ).
Their close personal relationship and the deepening relations between their countries was evident. Both committed to further strengthening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries, despite “geopolitical uncertainties.” Putin invited Modi to visit Russia for the 24th India-Russia Annual Summit, and Modi accepted, with the dates of that summit to be decided later. The two then rode together by car to visit the “INNOPROM India” exhibition, where Russia participated with its own Industrial Exhibition for the first time, “underscoring the importance of further expanding trade and industrial ties,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs noted.
Modi then met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, reporting afterwards that the two had discussed “the Iran-India friendship,” and agreed “that we should move forward with a long-term and win-win strategy.” Modi wrote that they continued their “productive discussions” in Bishkek, but this visit “is more special,” he added, because it was Pezeshkian’s first visit to India. Naturally, the “prevailing situation in the region” and the need for “an enduring peace” was discussed.
So much for Scott Bessent’s “Operation Economic Outcast” against Iran.
