The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been allocated a total of Rs 18,050 crore in the Union Budget for 2023-24 which is an increase of around 4.64 per cent over last year's allocation of Rs 17,250 crore.
India is likely to convey to Russia that its troops would not be participating in the multinational military exercise Kavkaz-2020 where Chinese and Pakistani troops are also going to be there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying 'today's era is not of war' even as he called for finding ways to address the global food and energy security crisis.
India says it cannot accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity.
India, the official said, has a long history of relations with Russia. They have interests with Russia that go back many, many decades.
'We stress that the boundary issue shall not be linked with the overall bilateral relations. That is an important experience we have gathered through many years' effort to keep the ties moving forward
Modi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit, including with Putin, and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev among other leaders.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held wide-ranging talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov focusing on the Ukraine conflict, bilateral ties and issues relating to the G20 foreign ministers' meeting.
The external affairs minister reiterated India's position on Afghanistan and highlighted its humanitarian support to the war-torn country, including the supply of wheat, medicines, vaccines and clothing.
It is the first time that Modi and Xi came face-to-face since the Chinese People's Liberation Army occupied Indian territory in Ladakh in April 2020.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu will visit India to hold the inaugural '2+2' ministerial dialogue between the two countries on December 6, the Russian embassy has said.
The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh even as the two sides completed disengagement from several areas following extensive diplomatic and military talks.
President of the Kyrgyz Republic, who is the current Chair of the SCO, and the PM of Mauritius, who was the chief guest at this year's Pravasi Bhartiya Divas, have also been invited, the MEA said.
In the document, Russia underlined that it will build on a privileged strategic partnership with India with a view to enhance and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis.
The meeting, which lasted for nearly 50-minutes, comes in the backdrop of stiff Chinese opposition to India's entry into the NSG, which looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector, including trade and export of nuclear technology.
PCB chief Najam Sethi said that they had sent a proposal to ACC that India can play their matches at a neutral venue.
'Terrorism continues to be the overwhelming threat to security and stability in the SCO region and therefore Dr Jaishankar strongly pitched for 'collective action',' observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The incident had taken place at a time when the Indian Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar, was in Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, where he met his Chinese counterpart to address the border issues.
It will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after the border row escalated in eastern Ladakh in early May.
Besides attending the SCO defence ministers' meeting, Singh will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu and several other top military officials with an aim to expedite the implementation of several defence procurement programmes, they said.
After two decades, the SCO appears to be at a cross-roads with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and asserted that there can be no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, while also underlining that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have catastrophic consequences.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to hold separate bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang and Russia's Sergey Lavrov at a beach resort in Goa on Thursday on the sidelines of a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) amid rapidly evolving regional security situation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Uzbekistan this week and discuss issues of strategic stability, the situation in the Asia Pacific region and bilateral cooperation within the UN and G20, the Kremlin has announced.
Government sources said the Pakistani action was "blatant violation" of the SCO charter and against all its established norms of safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of SCO member states.
The two leaders 'shared perspectives on situation in Afghanistan, including the role played by India towards an inclusive peace process', he said.
India has been raising with China the plight of approximately 22,000 Indian students enrolled in Chinese universities who are unable to go back for physical classes. However, the neighbouring country has till date refused to let them enter.
'Narasimha Rao asked me why China was doing so well in attracting foreign investments and I gave my frank opinion.' 'I told him that giving thrust to exports had to be a national effort.' 'But in India, the system was very centralised in the Government of India and the state governments had no role to play.'
On the last leg of his eight-day six-nation tour, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday made a strong pitch for taking India's ties with Tajikistan to newer heights in diverse areas.
It is important the SCO focus strongly on economic development and regional integration that leads to greater benefits for the least developed regions of member-countries, writes Sana Hashmi.
His trip to Moscow comes days after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the Russian capital to attend a meeting of the defence ministers of the eight-nation SCO of which both India and China are members.
After the outbreak of the pandemic in the country he has ruled with an iron hand in recent years, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist party of China, has mostly stayed put in Beijing.
Jaishankar also said that there is a need to take the disengagement process forward.
India, the world's third biggest oil consumer, meets more than 80 per cent of its oil needs through imports.
Mr Modi might have questions to ask himself on the most formidable strategic challenge before India that he inherited from the United Progressive Alliance: The triangulation between China and Pakistan. The failure to break out of it, or even loosen it a bit, is something to reflect on, notes Shekhar Gupta.
India and China agreed during their military talks on Sunday to stay in close touch and work out a mutually acceptable solution to the "remaining issues" in eastern Ladakh at the earliest, but there was no indication of clear forward movement in ending their three-year-long border standoff.
Speaking at a joint press appearance with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Washington, DC, Blinken said that the US tried everything possible to avert the Ukraine conflict through diplomacy.
Pakistan high commission sources said it has been an usual practice to invite the Kashmiri separatist leaders on such occasions.
The two leaders, who will be present in Ufa to attend the SCO summit, will be meeting on the sidelines of it.
This could become tricky territory for India, given its basically adversarial relationship with China, its moves to block imports and investment from that country, and to deny market access for Chinese technologies, observes T N Ninan.
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