A step towards better India-Japan relationship

A colloquium on India-Japan was recently organized by the India International Centre, supported by MEA and the Embassy of Japan. The seminar was a curtain raiser for the forthcoming visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in the second week of September.

The first session was an opening session on "Politics and Security". After the opening remarks by Shyam Saran, Life Trustee, IIC, the three speakers Dr Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary of India; Kenji Hiramatsu, Ambassador of Japan and Baijayant Panda, MP gave their comments.

Dr Jaishankar in his address talked about the shared values and complimentarity of interests between the two countries. He referred to the important role of Japanese Official Development Assistance in the infrastructure projects undertaken by the country. Ambassador Hiramatsu focused more on the strategic aspect of the relationship. He stated that global power was shifting to the Asia and that we are living in an age of uncertainty. Member of Parliament, Panda, in his special address said that in Asia serious challenges to the security were posed not just by North Korea but by the nuclear powers in the region. The security problem is not only a regional concern but global.

Session first was on 'Science and Technology Cooperation'. Dr Tairo Nomura from Saitama University gave an interesting presentation on, 'Symbiotic Relationship with Robot, AI and Human Being to Succeed in Today's Complex and Diverse World'. Post that, session two and three were conducted on the topics, 'Business to business relation' and 'Economic-Commercial with Focus on Japan,' respectively.

The discussion during the sessions brought out the point that though there was a lot of potential for economic cooperation, it had not really been realized fully so far. Also, in this colloquium the fact that came forth was that there was a lot of scope, potential and necessity for cooperation in the field of science and technology.