Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe during the ground breaking ceremony for high speed rail project in Ahmedabad on Thursday. PTI Photo/ MEA
On the day North Korea issued a threat to use the nuclear weapon to “sink” Japan, Prime ministers of Japan and India jointly condemned North Korea’s continued development of its nuclear weapons and ballistics missile programme.
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi pledged to work together to deal with the current serious situation and called on the international community to rigorously and fully implement relevant UNSC resolutions to maximise pressure on North Korea.
In a joint statement, both the leaders called for Pakistan to bring to justice perpetrators of terror attacks in India, including the 26/11 Mumbai attacks of 2008 and Pathankot in 2016, stating that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is a global scourge that must be forcefully combated through concerted global action in the spirit of “zero tolerance”. In an indirect dig at Pakistan, they called upon countries to work towards rooting out terrorists safe havens and infrastructure, disrupting terrorist networks and financing channels and halting cross-border movement of terrorists. They also said that they were looking forward to convening 5th Japan-India consultation on terrorism and to strengthen cooperation against terrorist threats from groups including Al Qaeda, ISIS, JeM, LeT and their affiliates.
The two leaders addressed the media during the 12th Indo-Japan Summit in Gandhinagar after inaugurating the High-Speed Train Project that will connect Ahmedabad to Mumbai early in the morning. Both the countries also inked 15 memoranda of understandings in the field of disaster risk management, skills development, connectivity, civil aviation, science & technology and sports.
Speaking at the media interaction, Modi said that in 2016-17 Japan invested $4.7 billion in India, 80% higher than the previous year. “Now Japan is the third largest investor. This shows the optimism in Japan about India’s economic development and bright future,” he said. “Ease of doing business, skill India, taxation reforms, Make in India, all are helping India transform. This is a big opportunity for Japanese business.”
He also announced a delivery service between India and Japan to serve rising Japanese diaspora in India. “India Post & Japan post would start a ‘cool box service’ for Japanese living in India so that they can order their favourite food from back home in Japan directly,” he said. In fact, he even appealed to entrepreneurs to explore the opportunity of opening Japanese eateries in India.
While the spotlight remained around bullet train, both the countries quietly strengthened their defence cooperation. Speaking to media, India foreign secretary S Jaishankar said, “till now, the thrust of the contacts and cooperation have been on maritime security only. We agreed to explore cooperation and exchanges between our Armies, ground self-defence force and Air Force and Japan’s Air defence.”
This was also reflected in the joint statement, which stressed on maritime cooperation between the Japanese Self Defence Force and the Indian Navy to include ‘anti-submarine aspects’ and greater need for maritime domain awareness (MDA) in the Indo-Pacific Region, commencement of technical discussion for future research collaboration in the field of unmanned ground vehicles and robotics.
Other than humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR), the joint statement also emphasised joint role in peacekeeping operations (PKO) and counter-terrorism, including joint field exercises between the Japanese and Indian land forces in 2018.
The 15 MoUs signed at the India-Japan Summit meet:
-Disaster Risk Management
- Japanese Language Educationin India between MEA and MOFA, Japan
- India Japan Act East Forum
- Arrangement between India Post and Japan Post on Administrative Instruction for the Implementation of Cool EMS service
- India-Japan Investment Promotion Road map between DIPP and METI
- MOC between METI and the State of Gujarat on ‘Japan-India special programme for Make In India’ in Mandal Bechraj-Khoraj in Gujarat
- Exchange of RoD on Civil Aviation Cooperation (Open Sky)
- Agreement for International joint exchange programme between interdisciplinary theoretical and mathematical sciences programme (iTHEMS), RIKEN and National Centres for Biological Sciences (Simons-NCBS)
- Joint Research Contract between National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST), Japan and Department of Biotechnology (DBT)
- Between DBT and National Institute of Advanced Science & Technology (AIST)
- International Academic and Sports Exchange between Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education (LNIPE)and Nippon Sports Science University, Japan (NSSU)
- International Academic and Sports Exchange between Sports Authority of India and Nippon Sports Science University, Japan (NSSU)
- Letter of intent between Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education (LNIPE) and University of Tsukuba, Japan
- Letter of intent between Sports Authority of India and University of Tsukuba, Japan
- Between RIS and IDE-JETRO for promotion of Cooperation in Research Related Activities