The civil nuclear deal is part of a bouquet of 16 agreements, which include India’s first bullet train with a package of $12 billion, and two defence deals on transfer of technology and protection of classified information. The high-speed train is to run between the western financial hub of Mumbai and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, the native state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Kalyani also suggested “review and strengthening” of the CEPA and quick implementation of the India-Japan Social Security Agreement, industry body CII said in a statement.
After the Modi-Abe talks, the two countries signed a broad-based MoU for cooperation in civil nuclear energy with the final pact to be signed after certain technical and legal issues are thrashed out.
A survey conducted two years back by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation for the island nation’s ministry for economy, trade & industry showed some 75 per cent of Japanese businessmen placing India as “the most promising country” ahead of China, Brazil, Vietnam and the US.
Modi and Abe, both ring-wing politicians, forged an unusually close relationship since the Indian leader came to power a year ago.
Later, briefing the media, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishanker said that India and Japan have reached a “substantive agreement” on the nuclear issue.
India and Japan today signed two key agreements which will pave the way for sale of Japanese defence equipment to India, including the much sought United States 2 amphibian aircraft, as both countries vowed deeper military cooperation especially in the maritime sphere. “It is (a) shining symbol of a new level of mutual confidence and strategic partnership”, PM Modi said.
South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG) and Japan Against Nuclear (JAN), along with Kick Nuclear, held a powerful protest against the Narendra Modi- Shinzo Abe Nuclear Agreement outside the Japanese Embassy in London on Friday and demanded the scrapping of the impending Japan-India Nuclear Agreement along with the creation of a nuclear-free zone in South Asia.
The “difficult issues” in negotiations included Japan’s insistence to add a clause in the agreement providing for termination of the cooperation in the event of a nuclear test by India.
“Strong India is for the good of Japan and strong Japan is good for India, this is my basic tenet”, he said. Under Abe, Japan has shifted away from 70 years of post-war pacifism, and the country recently lifted a decades-old ban on arms exports. Initially, New Delhi was in talks with China to bring the technology to India.
Explaining why India deeply values the strategic partnership with Japan, Modi said, “No friend will matter more in realizing India’s economic dreams than Japan and I cannot think of a strategic partnership that can exercise a more profound influence on shaping the course of Asia and our interlinked ocean regions more than ours”.
The two countries’ growing closeness is also seen to be driven by common concerns over the rise of China, particularly with Beijing flexing its muscles in territorial disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
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To support Modis Make in India initiative, Japan has created a fund of about $12 billion which will be provided to Japanese companies for manufacturing in India.
