Russian President Vladimir Putin visits former Cold War ally India this week, hoping to retain a dominant share of India’s military hardware market and boost cooperation in oil and civilian nuclear energy.

“Our relationship with Russia is not special anymore, and I suspect it is true the other way round as well,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research. “India doesn’t really figure in Russia’s strategic conception,” Mehta said. New Delhi, which once relied heavily on the former Soviet Union for military supplies, has increasingly turned to Israel, South Africa and even the United States for arms.

New Delhi’s ties with the United States have especially warmed since the war on terror, a surge in India’s economy and the emergence of a strong computer software industry. “Russia is with growing alarm witnessing the rapprochement between India and the United States,” Pave Felgenhauer, an independent defence and security analyst told Reuters in Moscow.

“This rapprochement may terminate India’s heavy buying of Russian military technology,” he said. On Wednesday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov held talks with his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, on a proposed defence technology secrecy pact that officials say will help in joint development of weapons.

“The only way our relationship will move forward is if we get into joint research, design and development, and manufacture of weapon systems,” said an Indian defence ministry official. “We cannot be locked into a relationship where we remain arms importers for another 30 years,” he said. During Putin’s visit, the two sides are also expected to discuss an Indian proposal for supply of nuclear reactors from Russia that has run into difficulties because of New Delhi’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Sensitive nuclear technology

Russia is helping build two 1,000 megawatt reactors at Kudankulam in south India, but New Delhi wants four more of these at the plant to meet its huge energy needs. Moscow has faced pressure from the United States and other nations not to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to India for fear it could be used to build nuclear weapons.

“We really want to build more reactors there, and India is really keen on that, but we simply can’t go ahead with that because of international restrictions,” said a source in the Russian Atomic Energy Agency. “It’s a very sensitive political issue. But the leaders of the two countries will likely discuss ways out of this deadlock. But nothing concrete will be signed.”

Putin who is due to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today will also travel to Bangalore, the country’s technology capital.

The two sides will also discuss ways to promote investments by Indian and Russian oil and gas firms in both nations. India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp said last week it was keen to bid for the assets of Russia’s crisis-hit oil major YUKOS.

The Russian government has said it will auction YUKOS’s main oil production unit, Yugansk, on Dec. 19 at a starting price of almost $9 billion as part of its drive to cover almost $25 billion in back-tax claims. ONGC already has a stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 project and is keen to bid for a stake in Sakhalin-3.

ISLAMABAD

Pakistan and India start talks on second train link

● Pakistani and Indian railway authorities opened talks in Islamabad yesterday on reopening a second rail link between the two countries, part of a slow-moving peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals. Railway officials are to discuss the feasibility of resuming train services, suspended since 1965, between the Indian village of Munabao in Rajasthan state and the small town of Khokrapar in southern Pakistan. Pakistan and India reopened their only working rail link after a two-year suspension this January, connecting the eastern city of Lahore and India’s northern city of Amritsar. Zaeem Ahmed Chaudhry, secretary of Pakistan’s Railway Board, said he was hopeful the two countries would be able to come to an understanding on reopening the second rail link. “It is gift from one country to another, to bring divided families together. It is a good gesture,” said Chaudhry referring to families separated when India and Pakistan were carved out of British colonial India in 1947. The two-day talks mark the start of back-to-back meetings between Pakistani and Indian officials throughout this month on all their disputes, including on Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars between the rivals since independence from Britain. Kashmir will be the main focus of discussion between the foreign secretaries of the two countries on Dec. 27 and 28, although analysts do not expect an early breakthrough on a dispute which has plagued relations for more than half a century.