Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for home on Thursday after wrapping up his visit to Indonesia, where he attended the ASEAN-India and East Asia summits. During his visit, which has been termed as fruitful and productive by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), PM Modi presented a 12-point proposal for strengthening India-ASEAN cooperation in areas like connectivity, trade and digital transformation.
The Prime Minister offered to share New Delhi's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) stack with ASEAN partners and establish a multi-modal connectivity and economic corridor linking South East Asia, India, West Asia and Europe, reported news agency PTI.
Collective fight against terrorism, terror financing and cyber-disinformation also featured in the 12-point proposals of the Prime Minister. He also ephasised upon raising issues being faced by Global South in multilateral fora.
While addressing the Summit, PM Modi said that a free and open Indo-Pacific and elevating the voice of the Global South is in the common interest of all.
Cooperation of maritime safety and security as well as disaster management were the other key points in PM Modi's proposal.
The Prime Minister also extended invitation to the ASEAN countries to join the Global Centre for Traditional Medicine being established by the World Health Organisation in India, reported PTI.
A proposal to share India's experience in providing affordable and quality medicines to people through Jan-Aushadhi Kendras was also made by PM Modi. Calling for cooperation in disaster management, the Prime Minister invited ASEAN countries to join the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.
Two joint statements, one on maritime and the other on Food Security were also adopted at the summit that emphasised on promoting efforts for public food stockholding for food security programmes.
"Promote efforts for public food stockholding, where relevant, for food security programmes and explore exports of food grains from public stocks on a government-to-government basis for humanitarian purposes in times of crises," read the joint statement.