The Great Gamble
There was a time, not too long ago, when the mere mention of money was anathema in sports ~ professionals were allowed in Wimbledon for the first time in 1968, and in the Olympics only from 1988.
Indian High Commissioner in South Africa Jaideep Sarkar on Wednesday inaugurated the BrahMos Aerospace corporation pavilion on the inaugural day of the Africa Aerospace and the Defence Expo in Cape Town.
India-Russia defence Joint Venture BrahMos Aerospace is capable of making hypersonic missiles completed its glorious 25 years since its formation in 1998. Coinciding with India’s 75 years of Independence, BrahMos Aerospace has commenced the ‘Silver Jubilee Year’ celebrations, for 2022-2023, to mark the incredible journey of one of India’s most successful, cutting-edge military partnership programmes that have produced the world’s best, fastest and most powerful modern precision strike weapon BrahMos.
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In the field of defence, India has longstanding and wide-ranging cooperation with Russia. India-Russia military-technical cooperation has evolved from a buyer-seller framework to one involving joint research, development and production of advanced defence technologies and systems. BrahMos Missile System as well as the licensed production in India of SU-30 aircraft and T-90 tanks are examples of such flagship cooperation.
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The defence cooperation between India and Russia is historically deep and built on trust. In 2021-22, there was a sustained momentum in India’s traditionally close ties with Russia and other countries in the Eurasian region despite the negative impacts of the pandemic.
The special role of Russia in India’s foreign policy was highlighted by the successful visit of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to India for the 21st India-Russia Annual Summit and the holding of the first India-Russia 2+2 Dialogue of Foreign and Defence Ministers, as well as the 20th meeting of India- Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation in New Delhi on 6 December 2021.
During the year, there were regular high-level exchanges between India and Russia at the Ministerial and senior official levels, including a number of virtual meetings.
Russians and Indians, both value and share values like friendship and loyalty, and this is something that unites the people of the two countries and especially the members of their permanent bureaucracies in ways that outside observers rarely ever realize.
The particularly privileged strategic partnership between the two countries has become stronger and more diversified over a period of time.
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