India and Russia on Friday inked two documents in the fields of civil nuclear energy and space cooperation, which would take the strategic partnership between the two nations to the next level.
ET was the first to report that the 19th edition of the annual India-Russia Summit will witness signing of these two key documents.
The two sides concluded an action plan for expanding civil nuclear partnership, comprising a second site for Russian nuclear reactors in India and cooperation in other markets in West Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Action Plan for Prioritization and Implementation of Cooperation Areas in the Nuclear Field was signed by Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation director-general Rosatom Alexey Likhachev and Department of Atomic Energy secretary Kamlesh Vyas, who is also chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. The two countries intent to develop a project of six nuclear power units of Russian design at a new site in India, further enhance cooperation in other countries and bring in new perspective nuclear technologies together with joint construction of nuclear power plants.
According to the document, for the new nuclear project in India, Russia will offer the evolutionary VVER generation “3+” technical solutions and increase the level of Indian industry’s involvement and localisation in the project. Russia is currently the only foreign partner for nuclear reactors in India, with the first plant it set up in Kudankulam. India and Russia are involved in a joint project for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.
The Indian Space Research Organization and the Federal Space Agency of Russia (ROSCOSMOS) signed a memorandum of understanding on joint activities in the field of Human Spaceflight Programme that would enable Indian astronauts to be trained in Russia. It is also understood that an Indian monitoring station will be built near the Russian city of Novosibirsk in Siberia as part of the Indo-Russian space deal.
The two sides stressed the importance of the longstanding India-Russia cooperation in outer space