Australia to return 29 Indian artefacts at bilateral summit today

India-Australia summit: PM Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison will hold a bilateral summit today. Australia will announce investments worth Rs 1,500 crore, the largest one so far, in India. It will also return 29 artefacts to India.

In a bilateral summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Monday, March 21, the Australian government will return 29 artefacts to India. Australia will also announce investments worth Rs 1,500 crore in India at the virtual summit to be held around 12.30 pm.

The investments will be spread across industries in several sectors like technology, critical minerals, etc. This will be the largest investment by Australia in India.

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This is the second such summit between the two leaders. The India-Australia summit follows the historic first virtual summit of June 4, 2020, when the relationship between the two nations was elevated to a 'Comprehensive Strategic Partnership'.

As the summit is taking place in the midst of the crisis in Ukraine, it is expected to figure in the talks between the two world leaders. Unlike its Quad partners -- the US, Japan, and Australia -- India has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has maintained that the crisis should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.

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Australia on Sunday said that the Quad member countries have accepted India's position on the crisis in Ukraine and it is evident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been using his contacts to call for an end to the conflict in that country.