India and Singapore signed a joint declaration on strategic partnership and nine bilateral accords on Tuesday, the second day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to this city state.
Modi and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong signed the joint declaration on strategic partnership to
elevate bilateral relations to a “strategic partnership to deepen and
broaden engagement in existing areas of cooperation and catalyse new
ones ranging from political, defence and security cooperation to
economic, cultural and people to people contact”, an official statement
said.
“The strategic partnership is also a framework to contribute to greater regional stability and growth,” it added.
Besides this, two agreements on defence
cooperation and loan of artifacts from India to Singapore, two executive
programme/operationalisation documents on arts and culture, and
white-shipping, and five memorandums of agreement (MoUs) on cyber
security, civil aviation, knowledge exchange in the field of planning,
urban planning, and combating drug trafficking were also signed.
The agreement on defence cooperation
enhances cooperation in the field by providing for defence ministersÂ’
dialogue, joint exercises between armed forces, and cooperation between
defence industries to identify areas of co-production and
co-development, the statement said.
The second agreement “extends the loan of Indian artifacts to the Asian Civilisations Museum of Singapore”.
The operationalisation document on arts
and culture is on an “executive programme on cooperation in the fields
of the arts, heritage, archives and library” between the Indian and
Singaporean governments for the years 2015-2018.
The second operationalisation document
has been signed following the technical agreement on sharing
white-shipping or commercial shipping information about movement of
cargo ships between the Indian and Singapore navies signed on July 21,
2015.
“Following the signing of technical
agreement between the two navies on sharing white-shipping information
in July 2015, both navies have established a two-way linkage. This has
enhanced bilateral cooperation in the area of maritime security,” the
statement said.
The MoU on cyber security was signed
between the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and the
Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT),
“The MoU promotes closer cooperation
and exchange of information pertaining to cyber security between the
computer emergency response teams of the two countries by establishment
of a broader framework for future dialogue; exchange of information on
cyber-attacks; research collaboration in smart technologies; exchange of
information on prevalent cyber security policies and best practices as
well as professional exchanges,” the statement said.
The MoU on civil aviation “facilitates
mutual cooperation in a number of mutually agreed areas of civil
aviation services and airport management beginning with Jaipur and
Ahmedabad airports”.
The third MoU promotes knowledge and
information exchange in areas such as urban planning, waste water
management, solid waste management and public-private partnerships
between India’s NITI Aayog and the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise
(SCE).
The MoU on combating drug “facilitates
and enhances cooperation by exchange of information on trends in the
illicit manufacture and those arrested on drug trafficking charges and
establishes direct contact points” between the Narcotics Control Bureau
(NCB) of India and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) of Singapore.
“Capacity building, skill upgrading and
knowledge development are also identified as areas of cooperation,”
the statement said.
The fifth MoU was signed between the
Town and Country Planning Organisation of India and the Singapore
Cooperation Enterprise in Capacity Building in the field of urban
planning and governance.
It provides for participation of
government officials from India in capacity-building programmes in areas
such as urban planning and management.
The documents were signed following bilateral talks between Modi and Lee here.
After the signing of the documents,
external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted that the two
prime ministers noted the importance of culture between the two
countries and encouraged more exhibitions, exchanges and interactions.
Modi and Lee noted their shared interest
in furthering cooperation in the areas of science and technology,
particularly in space, biomedicine and ayurveda, the spokesperson added.
The two prime ministers also released
two postal stamps showing Rashtrapati Bhavan and Istana, the Singaporean
presidential palace, to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between
the two countries.
Earlier on Tuesday, Modi was accorded a
ceremonial welcome at Istana following which he met Singapore President
Tony Tan Keng Yam and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.
Modi arrived in Singapore from Malaysia
on Monday on a bilateral visit in the second and last leg of his
four-day visit to southeast Asia.
Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs
