It does not happen very often that a visit to India from a P5 head of state gets completely overshadowed by a domestic issue like a young girl's rape in a country where rapes take place in their thousands every year.

Hitherto, no Russian president's India visit was ever underplayed or even ignored by the India media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in India on Monday, in a hurried 15-hour-long but stand-alone visit to a country with which Moscow has had time-tested and extremely close strategic ties.

The visit hardly found a mention in the main news bulletins of satellite TV and radio channels, and even newspapers had little or no space for it on their front pages. The reason was the brutal rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi during the peak hours of December 16 evening in a moving bus which triggered equally unprecedented spontaneous protests, rocking the central government like never before, so much so that even the venue of talks between Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to be changed at the last minute.

And yet Putin's just-concluded India visit is far more important than the fact that it threw up contracts worth $5 billion for the Russians.

Putin was in India for the 13th annual Indo-Russian summit which resulted in the signing of 10 bilateral documents, including eight agreements and Memorandums of Understandings (MoU) in such diverse fields as defense, science and technology, space, investment, software, pharmaceuticals and culture.

The defense deals pertained to the $3.5 billion tag for 42 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and a $1.3 billion contract for the delivery of 71 Mil Mi-17 military helicopters, demonstrating Russia's overriding importance in the Indian defense industry.

During the 2000-10 decade, Russia bagged Indian defense contracts worth $30 billion for supplies of hundreds of fighter jets, missiles, tanks and other weapons, a large part of which were license-produced in India - the biggest USP of Russia for India.

Another Indo-Russian defense agreement relates to a Joint Venture Agreement between Elcom Systems Private Ltd and OAO "Vertoleti Rassi" (JSC "Helicopters Russia") which aims to set up in India a modern industrial facility for manufacturing Russian models of helicopters (Ka- and Mi- brands).

According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the joint venture will serve as an industrial base for hi-tech rotorcraft products from Russia to India, and shall contribute to the development of the domestic aerospace industry. JSC "Helicopters Russia" is a leading player in the global helicopter industry engaged in the business of modern civilian and military helicopters and training of aviation personnel. Elcom Systems is an established entity in the Indian telecommunications, security and navigation sectors.

During Putin's visit, India and Russia also agreed to a Joint Investment Fund, and a MoU to promote direct investment between them was signed between State Bank of India and the Russia Foundation for Direct Investments (RDIF).

The MoU envisages investments up to $2 billion in important bilateral projects or companies, privatization and other opportunities.

RDIF is a $10 billion sovereign-backed Russian private equity fund established by the Russian government to co-invest alongside global institutional investors. Since its inception in 2011, it has led investments totaling $1.5 billion in Russian companies together with some of the largest asset managers in the world.  

The most important attraction for Putin to take all the bother to travel to New Delhi was evidently for something larger and much bigger which has slipped the attention of the hawk-eyed media.

During this visit, the two sides decided to embark upon an ambitious roadmap for deepening their cooperation in civilian nuclear energy and construct 16 to 18 nuclear energy plants in India of 1,000 megawatts each, which may cost $45 billion at today's prices.

This would reflect very positively in the Russian scheme of things as it would signify Russia's involvement in the Indian growth and development story.

The completion of all the proposed nuclear plants would mean that the Russian contribution to the Indian basket of power production would be 22,000 megawatts, or over 20 percent of India's current total power production with the help of Russia alone.

Putin's India visit was meant to be in the nature of preparing a solid foundation for the next phase of the Indo-Russian partnership. Those who thought the Indo-Russian ties are in a state of stupor need to take a break.

The author is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic analyst. bhootnath004.com