Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) will visit India this week, during which he will meet his counterpart Narendra Modi, visit the university in Jaipur, hold talks with local representatives, and deliver a speech at the Vibrant Gujarat economic summit, the Government Office told CTK.
Fiala will leave for India on Tuesday morning. The next day he will deliver a speech at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit, at 1:50pm local time he will meet with Modi, and later in the afternoon he will lay flowers at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and hold talks with Mozambican President Filip Nyusi.
Fiala and Modi will discuss the strengthening of relations between the two countries, the development of trade and defence cooperation, and joint scientific research projects, the Government Office said.
On Thursday, Fiala will visit the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center at the university in Jaipur, visit the construction of the Marik Center of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Cybernetics and meet with representatives of the university, local government, the business community and start-ups.
According to the Indian newspaper The Hindu, Fiala is expected to be the keynote guest at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit, which will be attended by representatives from 30 countries, including East Timor President and Nobel Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta and the heads of state of the United Arab Emirates and Mozambique.
According to the paper, Fiala’s visit to India can be expected to draw attention to the case of Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta, who has been detained in Prague since June. The United States accuses him of plotting to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York and is demanding his extradition. The matter could be the subject of talks between Indian officials and the Czech Prime Minister, The Hindu reported.
Fiala said in December that he would visit India in the first half of this year, as well as Spain and Italy. Last April, Fiala toured Asia, visiting the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In November, he visited Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
The Vibrant Gujarat Summit was also attended by previous Czech prime minister Andrej Babis (ANO) during his trip in January 2019, which also included Singapore and Thailand. It was the first prime ministerial visit from the Czech Republic to India since 2006, when Jiri Paroubek visited the country.
Five years earlier, former Czech president Milos Zeman had also visited India as the then prime minister. Of the Czech presidents, Vaclav Havel visited India in 1994 and Vaclav Klaus did so 11 years later.
