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        This year marks the dual anniversary of 60 years of India's independence and six decades of India-Russia diplomatic relations. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who is in India now as the guest of honour of this year's Republic Day celebrations, says that the best gift on this anniversary is new and concrete steps to deepen India-Russia diplomatic relations. That he means what he says is clear from the ease with which economic and defence agreements have marked the exchanges between Putin and Manmohan Singh. And Putin has significantly stressed that, without political support, it is not possible to efficiently cooperate in the economic sphere. In accordance with this perception, The two nations with the longstanding friendship between them have underlined their consensus on the approach to their West Asia policy. Without naming anybody, Putin and Manmohan Singh expressed their awareness of the need to reconcile conflicts in the region through negotiation, abjuring the use of force.

        That is a veiled indictment of Washington's West Asia policy which has destabilised Iraq and portends to aggravate tensions between Palestine and Israel by deepening suspicions about the real motive of the US in respect of its skewed perceptions in respect of Iran and Syria. With regard to Iran, Putin seems convinced that its nuclear policy is oriented to finding energy for civilian uses. Though India had voted against Iran at the IAEA meeting, it is trying to make amends by sending its Defence Minister to Tehran for clearing the air and facilitating economic cooperation even in the civilian nuclear energy sphere.

        What is particularly encouraging is the readiness of Russia to offer unstinted support to India's quest for peaceful nuclear energy. The evidence of such support is in promising to help in the construction of four nuclear reactors in Koodankulam. Putin has also promised to use its influence with the Nuclear Suppliers Group to restructure international norms of civilian nuclear cooperation. For its part, India has agreed to put under IAEA safeguards its nuclear facilities and the fuel supplied by Russia during the entire period of their actual use.

        The agreement with Russiatakes India's nuclear energy security a step for ward from what the US got for it. Indeed, the US rescued India from the status of obscurity among nuclear powers though it did not wish to call it so. In this sense, the agreement with Russia is a strong signal to the world that India cannot be obscured or denigrated for its nuclear ambitions. That is because of Russia's awareness that both countries share synergies in this sector with India's spiralling energy requirements juxtaposed with Russia's energy surplus.

        Moscow has agreed to provide access to the signals of its Global NavigationSatellite System for peaceful purpose besides cooperating with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in the latter's education project, the Youth Satellite. In the area of bilateral trade, it is proposed to improve the turnover to $10 billion by 2010.

        Indian businessman, however complain, that a lot of hurdles need to be removed in respect of visas and mortifying red tapism. In the area of defence requirements, India has been shopping for them across Israel, France and the US. Now Russia has offered to broaden the traditional buyer-seller relationship in this area. The four agreements signed between the two countries in advance of Putin's vsit relate to purchases of an advanced version of T-90 tanks, stealth frigates and Sukhoi-30 jets. Besides these, there would be expansion of bilateral cultural exchanges.