Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday held a bilateral meeting with UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps in London. The meeting was very warm with a fruitful exchange of ideas on both sides. Both Ministers discussed a range of defence, security and cooperation matters with particular emphasis on enhancing defence industrial collaboration, defence ministry officials said here.
Giving details, they said Shapps stressed that the relationship between UK and India is not transactional, instead both countries are natural partners with many commonalities and shared goals.
The bilateral defence meeting was followed by the signing of two agreements between India and UK - an MoU on conduct of bilateral international cadet exchange programme, and a Letter of Arrangement between Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) on defence collaboration in research and development. These documents will provide impetus to the people-to-people exchanges particularly among the youth, and larger area of defence research collaboration between the two countries.
After arriving in London late on Monday, Rajnath began his London engagements by paying floral tributes to Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi at his statue at Tavistock Square earlier on Tuesday.