Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday returned home from Russia after a highly productive three-day visit during which he clinched critical defence, science and technology, health and education related deals for India in his summit talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The prime minister’s plane touched base at the Palam Air Station here, after a six-hour non-stop flight from Moscow.

After a three-hour summit talks with Medvedev in Moscow Friday, Manmohan Singh announced that India will operationalise the 1,000-MW Kudankulam plant’s unit I within a couple of weeks and unit II in another six months.

He also successfully negotiated a credit line from Russia for units III and IV at Kudankulam, apart from opportunity to expand its economic cooperation through a possible future deal with a three-nation customs union that also involves Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Manmohan Singh was accompanied on this Moscow visit by his wife Gursharan Kaur and a high-powered delegation comprising National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, his Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterji, and secretaries from ministries of external affairs, defence, science and technology, petroleum and natural gas, and industrial policy and promotion.

During his stay in the Russian capital from Thursday, he also met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

During the meetings, Manmohan Singh felicitated and congratulated the two Russian leaders on the successful outcome of the Dec 4 Duma polls that had stirred a public protests on the streets of Moscow over opposition allegations of rigging.

He also got Russia to reiterate its support for India’s bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, apart from memberships of the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the regional grouping, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

During his visit, India and Russia signed agreements on five key areas, including licenced production of 42 Sukhoi front line combat planes for the Indian Air Force by the defence public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, taking the aircraft fleet in the air force inventory to 272 planes.

Among the other agreements was one on India helping Russia with safe management of fly ash from their thermal power plants in Russia’s Siberia region.

With economics and trade as the key focus, Manmohan Singh and Medvedev also attended a meeting of Indian and Russian captains of industry held to coincide with the Indian prime minister’s visit.