India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a summit on Friday, with defence and trade ties centre stage as New Delhi faces heavy US pressure to stop buying Moscow’s oil.Both leaders will also discuss the geopolitical situation in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and global trade disruptions triggered by tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.Big ticket defence sales and co-production ventures, energy purchases, and wider economic engagement are on the agenda, Putin’s first visit to India since the Ukraine war.Modi welcomed Putin at the airport on Thursday with a warm hug on a red carpet, before the two rode together in the same car to a private dinner — mirroring a lift that Putin gave Modi when they last met in China in September.”India-Russia friendship is a time-tested one that has greatly benefitted our people,” Modi wrote in a post on social media, accompanying a photograph of them grinning together inside the vehicle.It was a symbolic show of friendship, after US President Donald Trump imposed 50-percent tariffs on most Indian products in August, citing Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil — revenue Washington argues helps fund the war in Ukraine.In an interview with India Today, Putin said he was “very happy” to be meeting “my friend” Modi.”The range of our cooperation with India is huge,” he said in remarks translated by the broadcaster, citing ship and aircraft manufacturing, nuclear energy and space exploration.”This visit is part of India’s diversification strategy, both in terms of strategic and economic, especially at a time when the US tariffs have hurt India,” Ashok Malik of business consultancy The Asia Group told AFP.On Friday, Putin is due to be given an honour guard welcome at the presidential palace in New Delhi, before meeting with Modi.- ‘Balancing acts’ -India is walking a diplomatic tightrope — relying on strategic Russian oil imports while trying not to provoke Trump during ongoing tariff negotiations.”Balancing acts are second nature to Indian foreign policy making”, wrote Pankaj Saran, a former Indian envoy to Russia, writing in the Times of India.The leaders will also address business and industry leaders before Putin attends a state banquet hosted by the Indian President Droupadi Murmu.India, the world’s most populous nation, has become a major buyer of Russian oil, saving itself billions of dollars and providing Moscow with a much-needed export market after it was cut off from traditional buyers in Europe because of the war.Putin also told India Today that Modi is “not someone who gives in to pressure”, when asked about the impact of US tariffs.The Russian share of India’s arms imports fell from 76 percent in 2009-13 to 36 percent in 2019-23, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.Besides discussions around cutting-edge defence hardware, which includes air defence systems, fighter jets, and nuclear submarines, New Delhi will push for easier access to the wider Russian market.Bilateral trade reached $68.7 billion in 2024-25 — almost six times higher than the pre-pandemic levels — but Indian exports accounted for only $4.88 billion.The two countries are expected to announce an agreement on easier mobility of Indian workers into Russia.

Heavy rains lashed Sri Lanka on Friday, hampering a major clean-up operation after severe flooding and landslides last week killed nearly 500 people, officials said.Authorities reported up to 132 millimetres of rainfall in southern Sri Lanka over a 15-hour period ending Thursday night.But while the deluge was intense, they said the large-scale flooding seen since last week had begun to subside.The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said 486 people had been confirmed killed and another 341 were still unaccounted for after Cyclone Ditwah left the island on Saturday.The number of people in state-run refugee camps has dropped to 170,000 from a peak of 225,000 as floodwaters receded in and around the capital Colombo.Record rainfall triggered floods and deadly landslides, with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake saying it was the most challenging natural disaster to hit the island in its history.Residents evacuated from the landslide-prone central hills have been told not to return immediately to their homes, even if they were unaffected by the slides, as the mountainsides remained unstable.In the central town of Gampola, residents worked to clear the mud and water damage.”We are getting volunteers from other areas to help with this clean-up,” Muslim cleric Faleeldeen Qadiri told AFP at the Gate Jumma Mosque.”We have calculated that it takes 10 men a whole day to clean one house,” said a volunteer, who gave his name as Rinas. “No one can do this without help.”The top official in charge of the recovery, Prabath Chandrakeerthi, Commissioner-General of Essential Services, said authorities were paying 25,000 rupees ($83) to clean a home, with costs of reconstruction as much as $6-7 billion.A further 2.5 million rupees ($8,300) is being paid to begin rebuilding destroyed homes. More than 50,000 houses had been damaged as of Friday morning, officials said.Chandrakeerthi’s office said nearly three-quarters of the electricity supply across the country had been restored, but some parts of the worst-affected Central Province were still without power and telephones.President Dissanayake declared a state of emergency on Saturday and has vowed to rebuild with international support.

Santosh Devi is proud to have brought light — and hope — to her hamlet in western India, taking up solar engineering through a programme for women like her whose husbands suffer chronic disease from mining work.Her husband is bedridden with silicosis, a respiratory illness caused by inhaling fine silica dust which is common across some 33,000 mines in Rajasthan state, where the couple and their four children live.Santosh, 36, has joined seven other women for a three-month course at Barefoot College in Tilonia, a two-hour drive from her village in the desert state’s Beawar district.There, the group learned the basics of solar engineering — installing panels, wiring them, and assembling and repairing lamps — to help light up homes and provide electricity for anything from charging phones to powering fans.With their sick husbands out of work, the training has allowed these women to make a living and support their families.Barefoot College has trained more than 3,000 women from 96 countries since it was set up in 1972, according to Kamlesh Bisht, the technical manager of the institute.The college offers rural women new skills with the aim of making them independent in an environment where jobs are scarce and healthcare generally inaccessible.Santosh, who is illiterate, said she wants to “offer a good education and a better future” to her children, aged five to 20.She now earns a small income by installing solar panels, and hopes to eventually make the equivalent of $170 a month.The time away from her family was tough, but Santosh said it was worth it.”At first, I was very scared,” she recalled. “But this training gave me confidence and courage.”She showed with enthusiasm the three houses where she had installed a photovoltaic panel powering lamps, fans and chargers.- Slow killer -Her husband used to cut sandstone for pavers exported around the world.But now he can barely walk, needs costly medication and relies on a meagre state allowance of $16 a month.Wiping away tears with the edge of her bright red scarf, Santosh said she has had to borrow money from relatives, sell her jewellery and mortgage her precious mangalsutra, the traditional Hindu wedding necklace, to make ends meet.The family share a similar fate with many others in Rajasthan state’s mining belt, where tens of thousands of people suffer from silicosis.According to pulmonologist Lokesh Kumar Gupta, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 cases in just a single district, Ajmer.In Santosh’s village of 400 households, 70 people have been diagnosed with silicosis, a condition that kills slowly and, in many cases, has no cure.An estimated 2.5 million people work in mines across Rajasthan, extracting sandstone, marble or granite for less than $6 a day.Those using jackhammers earn double but face even higher exposure to toxic dust.Vinod Ram, whose wife has also graduated from the Barefoot College course, has been suffering from silicosis for six years and struggles to breathe.”The medication only calms my cough for a few minutes,” said Vinod, 34, who now weighs just 45 kilos (99 pounds).He started mining at age 15, working for years without a mask or any other protective gear.- No choice but to work -His wife Champa Devi, 30, did not even know how to write her name when she arrived at Barefoot College in June.Now back home, at a village not far from Santosh’s, she is proud of her newfound expertise.But her life remains overshadowed by illness and poverty.Champa, who has dark circles under her eyes, has installed solar panels in four nearby homes but has not yet been paid.For now, she earns about 300 rupees ($3.35) a day working at construction sites — hardly enough to cover her husband’s medical bills, which come up to some $80 a month.The couple live in a single dark room with thin blankets covering the floor, and the near-contact sound of detonations from nearby mines.”There is no treatment for silicosis,” said pulmonologist Gupta.Early treatment can help, but most patients come only after five to seven years, he said.Under state aid schemes, patients receive $2,310 upon diagnosis, and their families get another $3,465 in the case of death.Ill miners, who are physically capable, sometimes continue to cut sandstone for a pittance to support their families, despite the dire health risks.Sohan Lal, a 55-year-old mine worker who suffers from shortness of breath and severe cough, sees no other option but to keep working.”If I were diagnosed, what difference would it make?” he said.