India, S Africa's Joint Ministerial Meeting begins

The sixth Joint Ministerial Meeting between India and South Africa began on Monday to review the bilateral ties.
At the two-day meeting, the two sides will exchange instruments of Ratification of Extradition Treaty and the Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.

Co-chaired by Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh and South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, the meeting will review the entire gamut of relations between the two countries.

The areas to be covered are political, commercial and economic matters, including science and technology, culture, education, health, energy, information and communication technology and human resource development...

Progress on other pending accords such as agreement on health and medicine, programme of co-operation in science and technology, agreement on co-operation on maritime matters, agreement on housing, bilateral co-operation in arts, culture, sports and recreation will be reviewed.

The last session of the Joint Ministerial Commission was held in Pretoria in July 2003. Since then, there has been a visit of President Thabo Mbeki to India in October 2003 and the return visit by President A P J Abdul Kalam in September last year, first ever by the Indian President.

Taken from Times of India