New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (May 23, 2022) arrived in Japan on a two-day visit to attend the Quad summit alongside his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden, and new Australian PM Anthony Albanese. Prime Minister Modi received a rousing welcome on his arrival in Tokyo and also interacted with children outside the hotel where he will be staying during his trip.
During his interaction with the children, he also saw the drawing of a young girl and signed an autograph for her. He then interacted with a boy who was waiting for him with a drawing of the tricolour and greeted the Prime Minister in Hindi.
Impressed by his greeting, PM Modi asked him from where he learnt Hindi.
“…Can’t speak Hindi much, but I understand…PM read my message, and I also got his signature, so I am very happy…,” the grade 5 student Wizuki told ANI news agency after his interaction with the Indian PM.
Besides participating in the Quad summit in Tokyo on May 24, Modi, who is visiting Tokyo at the invitation of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, will hold separate bilateral meetings with Biden, Kishida, and Albanese on the sidelines of the summit.
In an op-ed published in a leading Japanese newspaper on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India and Japan will contribute towards building an open, free and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, connected by secure seas, integrated by trade and investment, defined by the respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity and anchored in international law.
Many Indians are now working in Japan and contributing to the Japanese economy and society, just as Japanese executives are contributing to economic development in India.
“I am convinced that such complementarities can be enhanced manifold,” he said.
The India-Japan partnership has a greater imperative and serves a larger purpose, he said.
“As two democracies, strategically located in the Indo-Pacific region, we can be important pillars of a stable and secure region. That is why our partnership is expanding across a broad range of areas,” he said.
“Our defence ties are growing rapidly, from exercises and information exchanges to defence manufacturing. We are doing more in cyber, space and underwater domains,” Modi said in the op-ed titled “India-Japan: A Partnership for Peace, Stability and Prosperity”.
“Besides security, together and with like-minded partners in the region and beyond, in institutions and arrangements like Quad, we are promoting initiatives for development, infrastructure, connectivity, sustainability, health, vaccines, capacity building and humanitarian disaster response in the region,” Prime Minister Modi said.
