President Putin gifts PM Modi handwritten page from Mahatma Gandhi’s dairy

Russian President Vladmir Putin on Thursday gifted Prime Minister Narendra Modi a hand written page from Mahatma Gandhi’s diary.

“President Putin gifted me a page from Gandhi ji’s diary containing Bapu’s handwritten notes,” Prime Minister Modi tweeted along with the photograph.

“President Putin also gifted an 18th century sword from Bengal, featuring intricate silver artwork. I thank him for the gifts,” he said in another tweet.

Prime Minister Modi and Russian President are set to hold the 16th India-Russia Annual Summit talks at Kremlin.

Prime Minister Modi and the Russian President are expected to discuss topical global and regional issues and prospects for cooperation in multilateral organisations, primarily at the United Nations, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

According to TASS, following the talks, a number of bilateral agreements are expected to be inked, in particular on transport, trade, energy and reciprocal trips of the citizens. Economic cooperation will be the focus of the talks.

The talks between the two countries, bound by special and privileged strategic ties, have been taking place alternately in Moscow and New Delhi since 2000.

Besides bilateral issues, the two leaders are likely to deliberate on a number of global issues having political dimensions including the situation in Syria and ways to tackle terrorism.

Prime Minister Modi on his second day of visit to Russia, will start the day by visiting Russian National Crisis Management Center (NCMC) and get an overview of its functioning and how it acts during natural disasters.

Apart from the bilateral meetings and issuing a joint statement, the Prime minister will also address at a gathering of friends of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday received a red carpet welcome on his first bilateralvisit to Russia.

Today, he will be greeted with twin cultural programmes Abhinandan and Abhivyakti.

On the eve of veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday, artists will perform musical enactment of Atal ji’s poem Geet Naya Gata Hoon rendered by Lata Mangeshkar. While Abhinandan will portray the assimilation of India’s performing arts traditions by Russian artistes, Abhivyakti will be an attempt to articulate and convey an authentic image of Indian traditions, history and culture by Russian artistes. (ANI)