This refers to the editorial, “Shifting sands” (May 23). Gone are the days when world leaders used to be contented by picking up their phones to greet their counterparts as part of confidence-building measures. Informal meetings have become the norm for most, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has followed up his meeting with President Xi Jinping of China with his one-on-one with another powerful world leader Russian President Vladimir Putin. Unlike China, Russia has been a solid friend of India from the latter's Soviet Union days. Whenever one's reliable chum befriends a sworn, long-standing enemy, a sense of worry tends to creep in because as they say “trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair”. But ultimately, truth triumphs and that's in short the New Delhi-Moscow story.
One need not look beyond Pakistan's games with Russia and China to understand this. US President Donald Trump's ‘America first’ slogan and his threat to impose sanctions on countries which do defence and intelligence business with Russia, has annoyed and angered countries like India no end. That said, President Putin must have squirmed in his chair following the India-US bonhomie of sorts. Russia has always been at the forefront in pushing India's cause at world forums — NSG or its UNSC membership. Therefore, sagacity and foresight are written all over the decision to elevate Indo-Russia partnership into a strategic and privileged one. The informal look to the Sochi meeting could not have been better timed. It says a lot about old friends trying to put speculation at rest. India seems to be well aware that making new friends is no substitute to building bridges, and not forgetting the old ones.