India, France sign agreements on maritime awareness, skill development

India and France on Thursday signed an agreement on behalf of the Indian Space Research Orgsation (ISRO) and Paris-based National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) for the establishment of a 'joint maritime domain awareness mission' to detect and tackle threats emanating from the sea during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the European country.

Upon his arrival in France on Thursday morning (local time), Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and discussed wide-ranging issues of mutual interests.

In the meeting, the two expressed their resolve towards freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific.

"Based on a shared commitment to maintaining the freedom of navigation, particularly in the Indo-Pacific zone, maritime security cooperation between France and India is a domain of excellence in their strategic partnership," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

The agreements were signed between the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of the Republic of India and the Ministry of National Education and Youth, Government of the French Republic for cooperation in skill development and vocational training.

The two sides further welcomed the signing of an agreement between the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and Bezons-based Atos, a French multinational information technology service, aiming at developing the cooperation in the fields of quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence and exascale supercomputing.

They also signed an agreement between National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

The Prime Minister will also hold meeting with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Friday.

On August 25-26, Modi will participate in the G7 Summit meetings as Biarritz Partner at the invitation of President Macron in the sessions on Environment, Climate, Oceans and on Digital Transformation.

( With inputs from ANI )