The Russian parliament has hailed the 'new height' in relations between Russia and India, a country its lawmakers see going past China in development in the next decade. ''Russia heartly welcomes the renewal of the warm and special bonds between the two countries. This is a correct step,'' Duma Speaker Gennady Selznov told a news agency on Wednesday.

Commenting on the outcome of President Vladimir Putin's visit to India, he said that the agreements on strategic partnership signed between Putin and the Indian PM will enhance Russia's prestige in the world. “It will remind the world that Russia is both a European and an Asian state,” he said.
According to Russian foreign office, which is summing up the results of Putin’s four-day visit which concludes on Thursday, India's pace of development will be faster than China in the next ten years.
Moscow, however, is viewing with concern the growing gap between general level of Indo-Russian cooperation and military-technical contacts. While the general level of cooperation is gradually going down, the military-technical contact is the only dynamically developing sphere of bilateral relations, international affairs experts Svetlana Babayeva and Yevgeni Krutikova wrote in daily 'Izvestia'.
The Indo-Russian strategic partnership will prove to be far more important than weapons sale revenues because India has every chance of becoming a 'very serious' player on the global scene, said Andrei Kokoshin, a former head of National Security Council that was once headed by Putin. Russian military expect India seeking nuclear-powered submarines and other strategic weaponry not covered by international non-proliferation documents, according to daily 'Segodnya'.
Bureau Report