India-Russia gas pipeline talks

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the sixth BRICS summit in Brazil today. This meeting will follow Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Modi-Putin talks will cover a new point in the Indo-Russian discourse - a hydrocarbon pipeline from Russia to India. The proposed pipeline would give a major boost to the Indo-Russian ties.

The hydrocarbon pipeline is likely to cost US$ 40 billion and would take four to five years to complete. Initially, the pipeline would be used for transporting gas and later also for oil.

Modi and Putin are likely to give the political clearance to the project. After this, technical consultations will start. Both the countries will set up a task force for implementing this project.

Since setting up a joint task force for such a massive project would require a lot of work and hectic consultations, the deal is unlikely to be clinched at a meeting on the sidelines of a multilateral summit. India and Russia are likely to announce the setting up of this joint task force when Putin travels to India later this year for a bilateral summit.

The meeting between the two leaders will be a meaningful and specific review of the whole gamut of their interaction, from bilateral agendas, defense and economic cooperation to burning international issues.

Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner

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