Moscow, December 6
India and Russia today signed four agreements, including one on Reciprocal Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the field of Military Technical Cooperation, at the end of the annual summit meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Vladimir Putin. While three agreements were signed in the presence of Dr Singh and Mr Putin at the Grand Kremlin Palace after the meeting, the fourth agreement — Protocol to the agreement between India and Russia on the implementation of the programme for military and technical cooperation up to 2010 and on procedure for making changes in that programme — was signed separately later.
This accord was signed by Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal and Mr A.V. Denisov, First Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Service on Military-Technical Cooperation.
Announcing the signing of the fourth agreement, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said this would enable fresh joint efforts by both countries in the development, research and production of military hardware.
The agreement on safeguard of technologies while implementing long-term cooperation in the area of joint development, operation and use of the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System
(GLONASS), the alternative to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), was signed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair and Russian Federal Space Agency
(FSA) Director A. Perminov.
An agreement on cooperation in space was signed between the two countries in the area of exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes on December 3, 2004, for joint development, operation and use of
GLONASS.
The agreement envisages launching of GLONASS satellite using GSLV launch vehicle of India. In turn, Russia will provide access to GLONASS system signals for Indian use. The cooperation also envisages joint development of user equipment for exploitation of GLONASS signals for commercial purposes.
The agreement would enable development of procedures for handling protected article used in connection with the joint activity.
Mr Perminov and Mr Madhavan Nair, who is also Secretary in the Department of Space, also signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of solar physics and solar terrestrial telationships within the framework of the CORONAS-PHOTON project.
As a followup to the agreement on use of outer space for peaceful purposes signed in 2004, ISRO and FSA have agreed to cooperate in the field of space exploration.
The CORONAS-PHOTON mission aims at research in the field of solar physics and solar terrestrial relationships. The present agreement enables the integration of the Indian RT-2 payload with the CORONAS-PHOTON spacecraft and a joint space experiment using the RT-2 equipment.
The agreement on reciprocal protection of IPRs in the field of military technical cooperation was signed by Mr Kanwal Sibal and Russian Justice Minister Yuri Chaika. The agreement is designed to protect intellectual property rights with respect to bilateral military technical cooperation. It is applicable to joint activities related to designing, construction, production and
transfer of technology of military products.
— UNI
