India and Japan are likely to finalise an agreement on protection of military information during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s trip beginning on Friday that will the lay the ground for Japanese arms sales to India, including seaplanes. New Delhi was reluctant and pointed out to Tokyo that it had declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests in 2008 and it still remained in force.
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Review of the existing free trade pact and quick implementation of the social security agreement were among the key suggestions made by Indian businesses to boost economic ties between India and Japan.
Some 150 civic group members and others gathered in front of the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, holding banners such as “We can not create peace with nuclear” and protesting, “We oppose the Japan-India nuclear deal”.
If sealed, the nuclear pact with India will be Japan’s first with a country which has not joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“This is a shining symbol of a new level of mutual confidence and strategic partnership in the cause of a peaceful and secure world”, Modi said, adding the pact envisaged on nuclear energy cooperation would extend beyond commerce and clean energy.
Modi also said India would extend visas on arrival to Japanese citizens from next year.
Similarly, Abe said in the next five years Japan would like 10,000 young Indian talents to visit his country under such frameworks as student exchange, IT training and short term programmes, and hoped that this will provide solid bonds for future relations.
Japan is also participating in Modi’s pet project “Make-in-India”, which aims to transform India into a manufacturing hub.
Hiroshi Shimizu, secretary general of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations said, “We are not sure when India, for some reason, will seek to divert the technology to nuclear weapons”.
“Prime Minister Modi’s economic policies are like Shinkansen – high speed, safe and reliable and carrying many people along”, said Abe.
He said that India wants to move ahead with its development agenda.
On the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) issue, he said India had put it behind with Japan’s help in 2008 itself when the nuclear suppliers group decided to make an exception for India.
India’s economic growth accelerated to 7.4 percent in the second quarter of the financial year, figures released in November showed, outperforming China. “I cannot think of a strategic partnership that can exercise a more profound influence on shaping the course of Asia”.
Abe, who was wearing a standard Nehru jacket, took half within the holy rituals together with Prime Minister Modi amid chants of holy mantras, flanked by clergymen. In between he also chatted with Modi and enquired about the number of ghats and other holy activities in Kashi, an official present told IANS.
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A priest additionally tied a holy thread on Abe’s wrist after he was completed with the Aarti.
