8 September 2000

INDIA TO SIGN EIGHT AGREEMENTS WITH RUSSIA DURING PUTIN'S VISIT

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin will be celebrating his 48th birthday in India on October 7  unless and except India is compelled to ask him to reschedule his visit in view of the indifferent health of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His wife and daughter will be with him to celebrate his birthday either in Delhi or in Agra.

The tentative programme has been drawn up for his four-day trip from October 6, which includes the last one and a half days in Mumbai, but it is being kept under wrap as the Foreign Ministry would make it public only after ascertaining whether Vajpayee goes for a knee surgery or any other operation after the medical checkup in the United States early next week.

Vajpayee may become immobilised for three to four weeks if he were to undergo the knee operation before concluding the US trip or immediately after return to India. The Government would not like the Putin visit take place when Vajpayee is convalescing.

All the same the Indian Government is giving great importance to Putin's visit to balance its pro-American stance. The Government has attracted the pro-American charge because of the way it went on declaring several economic liberalisation measures without conducting even adequate study of its long-term implications just for the sake of Vajpayee showing a better economic card to US President Bill Clinton.

The Government's attempt is to attract speedy investments by the US-based multi-nationals (MNCs) by offering various concessions, but at the same time it does not want to lose the long-term economic association of decades India has with Russia. That is why the Prime Minister's instructions were that all preparations should begin for receiving Putin in India as early as possible after he returns from the United States as that would quickly shrug off the pro-American label affixed on him.

Eight commercial, industrial and defence agreements have been lined up for signing between India and Russia during Putin's visit.

As per the tentative plans drawn up by the Foreign Ministry in consultation with the Russian Embassy, Putin would start his trip with a bilateral talks on October 6 and then visit Agra in the afternoon. He would fly back the same evening to catch up with the banquet President K R Narayanan will be throwing in his honour.

In the event of revision of his Agra part of the trip, he may go there on October 7 to have his birthday celebrated in the Taj Mahal. He will be in Mumbai for one-and-a-half day before rounding off the visit to India and returning to Moscow straight from Mumbai.

ADVANCE TEAMS: Eighteen Russian delegations are slated to arrive in Delhi between September 19 and 29 to make advance preparations for Putin's visit and they would be putting up in different hotels of Delhi until Putin's return to Moscow. Two rounds of discussions are slated on September 19 and 23 to prepare the draft agreements to be signed during Putin's visit.

On September 30, 15 planes load of security equipment, including six bullet proof cars, will be arriving from Moscow for being placed in Delhi and Mumbai. The Indian intelligence authorities have been told that Putin would prefer to stay in the Russian Embassy while in Delhi.

The carcade of every VVIP the world over always has an ambulance fitted with all modern gadgets for taking care of any medical emergency. Putin, however, hates an ambulance trailing him wherever he goes. An advanced Russian security team which is now in Delhi ticked off the ambulance which figured in the check list of arrangements proposed by the Indian security agencies.

They laughed and pointed out that the ambulance was needed when the then Russian President Yeltsin was supposed to visit India since he had poor health and certainly needed medical aid at short notice. But at 48, Putin is fighting fit and scoffs at even the sight of doctors in his vicinity, they remarked.

The Russians' prime concern was presence of a lot of Afghan refugees in both Delhi and Mumbai and they were quite pleased when told by the Police authorities that all these refugees would be kept under house arrest during Putin's stay in India.     

PROFILE: Vladimir Putin in 1968. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in St Petersburg, then known as Leningrad. He was raised as an only child; his two brothers died young, one shortly after birth, the other of diphtheria during World War II. Although it was officially prohibited by the Communist law, Putin was baptized in the Russian Orthodox faith. In his youth he was called Volodya or Putka. His father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was a factory foreman and died in August 1999 (his mother, Maria Ivanovna Putina, died six months earlier).

Putin has good command of English and German and he is fond of sports, especially wrestling. He has been going in for sambo (a Russian style of self-defence) and judo since the age of 11. He won the sambo championships of St Petersburg many times and became Master of Sports first in sambo and later in judo. Putin doesn't smoke and he is not an excessive drinker.

Vladimir Putin is married to Lyudmila (1958) and has two daughters: Katya (1985) and Masha (1986). They were both born in Dresden, Germany and now attend an international school in Moscow. The Putins love animals; they own a white poodle called Tosca. Lyudmila is a graduate of the philological department of the Leningrad State University. After studying, she first worked as a stewardess in Kaliningrad and then as a schoolteacher. She speaks German, Spanish and  French.

Far from charismatic, he has an expressionless mask-like face, rarely smiles, and speaks softly. For years he had a reputation as a "grey cardinal", a man who wields power quietly, behind the scenes. But suddenly, in August, he was catapulted into the political spotlight, and the former eminence grise quickly came to be seen as a man of action.

In response to incursions by Chechen Islamic militants into neighbouring Dagestan, Mr Putin ordered the Russian army to expel them. Then, blaming the Chechens for a series of apartment-block bombings in Russian cities, he told the troops to continue into Chechnya, to root out and destroy the rebels.

In an end-of-year address at a Kremlin reception he said Russia had been duty-bound to restore national honour in Chechnya, where the Russian army was humiliated in the conflict of 1994-96. "We shall not allow the national pride of Russians to be trod upon," he said. "We are sure of the power and prosperity of our country."

LIBERAL CREDENTIALS: But despite his current image as a strong man, Putin has been endorsed by some of Russia's best-known liberals and reformers. His predecessor as premier, Sergey Stepashin, described the 47-year-old as a "decent and honest man".

After the collapse of communism in 1991 he worked with Mayor Anatoli Sobchak in Petersburg. And when Sobchak lost power in 1996 it was another reformer, Vice-Premier Anatoli Chubais, who recommended him for a job in the presidential administration.

In an essay posted on the internet at the end of December - seen by many as his manifesto for the presidency - Putin said he favoured a market economy, but one that was adapted to Russian conditions.

"We can count on a worthy future only if we manage to naturally combine the principles of a market economy and democracy with Russia's realities," he wrote.

He said Russians still relied on a strong, paternalistic state: "There is no point speculating whether this tradition is good or bad. It exists and remains dominant for now. This should be taken into account, especially in social policy." Russia, he said, was not yet ready for classical liberalism, and would not soon, if ever, come to resemble the USA or the UK.

He had words of criticism both for Soviet leaders, who he said failed to make the USSR a free or flourishing country, and for the post-Soviet reformers who he said had made avoidable mistakes. However, like Yeltsin before him,  Putin maintains close relations with many of these reformers.

In Russia's recent general election he won the public backing of the Union of Right-Wing Forces, headed by two young liberals, former prime minister Sergey Kiriyenko and former deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov. This party's association with Putin helped it to take fourth place, while the party Putin himself voted for - the pro-Kremlin Unity bloc - came second. Putin is the first Russian prime minister with such significant support in parliament.

Although he has now given a statement of his economic and social policies, his abilities in this field remain largely untested. He has been fortunate that the soaring price of oil has alleviated Russia's perennial cash shortages during his first months in office.

His huge popularity with Russian voters still depends almost completely on military successes in Chechnya, and this is fraught with risk. Though the Russian army has tried to stay out of reach of Chechen fighters, subjecting them instead to a remorseless air bombardment, there is a risk that Russian casualties will rise.

If they reach the levels seen in the last Chechen war between 1994 and 1996, Putin, among others, would take the blame. This is one reason why the early presidential election caused by Yeltsin's sudden retirement is to Putin's advantage. With the vote in March rather than June, he has a better chance of being elected president before the Chechen conflict goes sour. END