NEW DELHI: India and France will look to additional improve their defence, commerce and expertise ties as PM Narendra Modi hosts French President Emmanuel Macron for a bilateral assembly in Mumbai on Tuesday. Throughout his three-day go to to India, Macron may even take part within the AI summit in Delhi on Thursday.Official sources stated near a dozen agreements/MoUs are more likely to be signed after the bilateral assembly in areas like defence, commerce, skilling, well being, and provide chains. In Mumbai, the leaders will collectively inaugurate the India-France 12 months of Innovation which might be celebrated by means of 2026 in each nations, in response to the ministry of exterior affairs. The India-France 12 months of Innovation and Cultural Commemoration might be held on the Gateway of India on Tuesday night.The Indian govt had final week permitted a proposal to acquire 114 Rafale fighter jets underneath a govt-to-govt framework from France. India and France may even maintain on Tuesday the sixth Annual Defence Dialogue in Bengaluru that’s anticipated to see the renewal of their defence cooperation settlement for an additional 10 years. Discussions are additionally more likely to deal with higher cooperation involving air and maritime property, in step with the bold Defence Industrial Roadmap agreed to in 2024.Each leaders may even look to debate regional and world points, together with the Russia-Ukraine warfare, the state of affairs in Gaza and the Indo-Pacific area the place India sees France as an indispensable companion. With uncertainty looming over Quad, the partnership with France, a resident energy within the Indian Ocean, has turn out to be much more important for India.In line with Indian authorities, each leaders will maintain discussions on strengthening bilateral cooperation throughout a large spectrum of areas as enshrined within the Horizon 2047 Roadmap that was adopted three years in the past, setting the course for bilateral cooperation over the subsequent 25 years. Macron’s participation within the AI summit in India follows his co-chairing with Modi the identical summit in France final yr.Each leaders had then harassed their frequent dedication to concrete actions to make sure that the worldwide AI sector can drive social, financial and environmental outcomes in public curiosity. They’re additionally anticipated to overview progress on the India-France Roadmap on AI, rooted within the “philosophical convergence” of their approaches specializing in the event of secure, open, safe and reliable synthetic intelligence. The roadmap had been launched final yr throughout Modi’s go to to France.