India and Japan Focused On Expanding, Defence and Cyber Security Cooperation

India on 22 October 2012 held its first 2+2 dialogue with Japan for enhancement of cooperation in the key areas that includes Maritime, Outer Space and Cyber Security at Tokyo, Japan. During the talks both the nations agreed to hold a dialogue on Cyber Security on 5 November 2012.

The Indian Delegation to Tokyo was led by the Foreign Secretary of India Ranjan Mathai and the Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma and their counterparts from Japan were Deputy Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki and Administrative Vice-Defence Minister Hironori Kanazawa.

Ashok Mukherjee, Special Secretary of Ministry of External Affairs would lead the Indian team to the Cyber Security dialogue between the two nations. It’s expected that the meet would be of some help in enhancing the security of Indian cyber network to the next level, which have always been an issue of hackers attack from abroad and within the country.

The scheduled dialogues between the two countries are the results of the action plan initiated in December 2009 for advancement of the security cooperation followed by the meet of June 2010 at New Delhi.

The potential expansion of India-Japan defence relations took a kick-start after the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda lifted the national ban on arm exports following the new guidelines announced under National Defense Program Guidelines in December 2010 in Tokyo. Japan can now sell military equipment and weapons with the purpose of peace-building and peace keeping operations. It can also join hands in weapon and military technology development with partner nations.

Besides the traditional partner Russia, India’s defence partners at present are US, France and Israel.