Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the need to develop economic, military and political power to emerge as a strong nation. While inaugurating the third edition of the geo-political conference, 'Raisina Dialogue', Netanyahu appreciated the efforts being made by the Modi government to cut bureaucratic red tape and improve ease of doing business. Prime minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also attended the inaugural session. . Netanyahu, who is in India for a 6-day official visit, visited the Taj Mahal in Agra along with his wife. He returned to New Delhi in the evening to inaugurate the 3rd annual Raisina Dialogue.
The Raisina Dialogue is India's premiere foreign policy and geo-political conference. The three-day conference, has an impressive line up of more than 150 speakers and over 550 delegates. The Dialogue is jointly organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation, and will take place at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi's diplomatic enclave. The theme of the Dialogue this year is 'Managing Disruptive Transitions: Ideas, Institutions and Idioms'.
“Democracies bind and connect to each other in natural ways. I saw sympathy and friendship of people. When I walked in streets of India, just like in Agra, someone said to me, we are so happy that you are friends with our PM, we are friends with you & Israel. The alliance of democracies is important to secure our common future, I believe possibilities are endless. In this visit, we have discussed how we can strengthen our two nations in civilian, security and in every area. The weak don't survive, the strong survive, you make alliances with the strong, you are able to maintain peace by being strong. So, therefore the first requirement was to achieve minimal strength required to assure existence.”
Modi and Netanyahu will travel to Gujarat on Wednesday, where they will be attending various programmes. The two will proceed to Sabarmati Ashram from Ahmedabad Airport and pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi there. Netanyahu's visit underlines celebration of 25 years of diplomatic relations between India and Israel.
Netanyahu hails Modi as a 'revolutionary leader'
The strong bonding between Modi and Netanyahu was in full display on Monday as the Israeli premier called Modi a "revolutionary leader" who had transformed India-Israel ties and the Indian PM reciprocated, promising big steps in cooperation in agriculture, science and defence.
"You are a revolutionary leader and you are revolutionising India. You are catapulting this magnificent state into the future. And you have revolutionised the relations between Israel and India," Netanyahu said after talks with Modi. He even offered to do some yoga stretches with the Indian PM.
Etching out commonalities in their personas to emphasise convergence of Indian and Israeli interests, Modi said, "I have a reputation for being impatient to get results and so do you, PM Netanyahu. We will strengthen our cooperation in areas that affect the lives of our people — agriculture, science and technology and defence."
The sentiment was iterated more concretely at the India-Israel business summit that saw the digital launch of the 'I4Fund call for proposal website' for joint research and development projects. "I welcome Israeli companies to come take advantage of the liberal FDI in India's defence sector," Modi said.
The catchy 'know how to show how' tag line of the India-Israel initiative is intended to fund affordable technological innovations in areas like water, agriculture, energy and digital technologies.
Hailing a new era of India-Israel cooperation, Netanyahu worked up the personal chemistry between the two leaders to say that he could even join Modi for some yoga. "Finally, this is perhaps the most important statement I can make here, my friend Narendra, any time you want to do a yoga class with me, it's a big stretch but I will be there," he said.
The relaxed atmosphere even showed up during the official lunch where Israeli officials apparently cheerfully hummed along with "Eechak dana" being played in the background. The two leaders met for 'restricted' talks in the morning where defence, security and geo-politics were discussed. On Sunday evening, NSA Ajit Doval met his counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat as they discussed security, counter-terrorism and defence cooperation. Among the nine agreements signed on Monday was one that expands the scope of cyber security cooperation from businesses to governments, including India's CERT institutions.
A joint statement issued after the talks spoke surprisingly briefly about terrorism, even though cooperation in this field is a big part of bilateral ties. Announcing the next meeting of the joint working group on homeland and public security in February, the statement said, "There can be no justification for acts of terror on any grounds whatsoever and advocated strong measures against terrorists, terror organisations, those who sponsor, encourage or finance terrorism or provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups."
