Skip to main content

India rolls out red carpet for Macron as France eyes trade deals

President Emmanuel Macron was given a red carpet welcome and an elephant honour guard on Thursday as he started a two-day visit to India, with France eyeing lucrative deals with the world’s fifth-largest economy.

Landing in Jaipur, state capital of Rajasthan, Macron will be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a banquet in a 19th-century maharaja’s palace.

On Friday, he will be the chief guest in New Delhi at a colourful military march-past with massed ranks of tanks, dancing troupes, camel cavalry and a fighter jet fly-past.

India’s foreign ministry says New Delhi and Paris are “strategic partners”, while the French presidency says the trip will “consolidate and deepen diplomatic and economic relations”.

Despite concerns over human rights, differences over the war in Ukraine and Delhi’s close ties with Moscow — India’s key military supplier — the US and its European allies are courting New Delhi as a military and economic counterweight to China.

France hopes to build on its military contracts after the Indian defence ministry purchased French-made Rafale fighter jets and Scorpene-class submarines in multibillion-dollar deals.

Macron — who, according to Indian media, is coming after US President Joe Biden was unable to take up an invite — is also hoping France can sell six EPR nuclear reactors.

‘Peace and security’

Modi was guest of honour at France’s annual Bastille Day celebrations last July, and Macron is to receive a similar welcome.

The French president was last in India for the G20 summit in September. Paris and New Delhi collaborate on space and satellite technology, and the French delegation includes astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

The visit includes a stop at Jaipur’s 18th-century Jantar Mantar astronomical observation site, before dinner with Modi at the Rambagh Palace, a luxury hotel.

On Friday, Macron will watch a military parade in New Delhi for Republic Day, the 75th anniversary of India’s constitution. Just as Indian soldiers marched down the streets of Paris in 2023, a French contingent will join the military spectacle, as French-built jets roar overhead.

India is “a key partner in contributing to international peace and security”, the French presidency said ahead of the visit.

Last year, Macron visited neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and also took a Pacific trip aimed at “recommitting” France to the wider Asia-Pacific region.

‘No taboo subjects’

Rights issues will also be discussed. Journalists, activists and religious minorities have complained of harassment since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government took power in 2014, with accusations of rising religious intolerance towards the country’s Muslim minority.

Modi’s government has been accused of stifling independent media, with India falling 21 places to 161 out of 180 countries in rights group Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index since he took office a decade ago.

French journalist Vanessa Dougnac was told this month that she is facing expulsion after more than two decades in India for what authorities have termed “malicious and critical” reporting.

The visit also comes days after Modi opened a Hindu temple, built on grounds where a mosque stood for centuries before it was torn down in 1992 by Hindu zealots incited by members of his party.

Modi said the temple heralded a “new era” for India after a ceremony that embodied the triumph of his muscular Hindu nationalist politics and galvanising loyalists ahead of elections later this year.

Macron is slated to visit a Muslim Sufi shrine in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin West neighbourhood during his visit.

A Sikh group in Britain also called on Macron to skip the parade “or raise concerns directly” with Modi after the alleged targeting of Sikh separatists abroad, an issue that sparked a major diplomatic row with Canada last year.

“There are no taboo subjects,” a French presidential adviser said ahead of the visit. “But the goal is to discuss them with respect and with the aim of achieving concrete results”.



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/FwfpICs
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Explainer: Iran’s economy faces rocky road amid rising prices, falling currency

Iran’s economy is going through one of its most difficult periods in years, fueled by sanctions, high inflation, and a significant drop in the value of the national currency, the rial. These pressures have had a direct impact on living standards and have also fueled recent protests. The protests began on Dec. 28 in commercial hubs in the capital Tehran, when shopkeepers, merchants, and small business owners staged strikes and demonstrations to protest soaring inflation, the collapsing rial, and deteriorating economic conditions, and have since grown into nationwide anti-government expressions of discontent involving workers, students, and others across multiple cities. The Iranian president said Sunday that his government is determined to address Iran’s economic problems amid the protests. Masoud Pezeshkian said the government admits to “shortcomings and problems” and is working hard to alleviate the people’s concerns, especially on the economy. Currency collapse at the centre of c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mitchell Starc surpasses Wasim Akram as most prolific left-arm pacer in Test history

Australian veteran Mitchell Starc became the most prolific left-arm paceman in Test history on Thursday, surpassing Pakistan great Wasim Akram. The 35-year-old bagged England’s Harry Brook at the Gabba in Brisbane on day one of the day-night second Ashes Test for his 415th wicket since his debut at the same ground 14 years ago. It moved him past Wasim, widely recognised as the greatest left-arm bowler the sport has seen. Wasim played 104 Tests for his 414 wickets with Starc reaching the milestone in his 102nd, helped by a career-best 7-58 in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test at Perth. Starc is now 16th on the all-time wicket-taker list and could move above both India’s Harbhajan Singh (417) and South Africa’s Shaun Pollock (421) in the current pink-ball Test. After that he will have New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee (431) in his sights. from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/xclHiX2
Post a Comment
Read more

Global reaction to potential Israel-Hezbollah ‘spiral of violence’

World leaders on Tuesday sounded the alarm over fears of a wider conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in two decades in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds. After nearly a year of cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive erupted, Israeli bombardment on Monday killed 558 people in Lebanon, including 50 children, according to the country’s health ministry. The toll — the highest since Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah went to war in mid-2006 — raised fears of an all-out conflict engulfing the Middle East. ‘Tens of thousands’ flee: UN UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed by the escalating situation… and the large number of civilian casualties, including children and women,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes yesterday and overnight, and the numbers continue to grow,” United Nations refugee agency spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said in Geneva. ‘Spiral of violence’: US Israel’s clo...
Post a Comment
Read more