Rajnath Singh and Brekelmans: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a meeting with his Netherlands counterpart, Ruben Brekelmans, in Delhi on Tuesday. The two leaders warmly greeted each other with a handshake before beginning their discussions.
Brekelmans is in India to attend the Raisina Dialogue 2025, a major conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics hosted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). The event, taking place in New Delhi from March 17, brings together global leaders to discuss pressing challenges facing the world.
This year’s Raisina Dialogue, themed “Kalachakra: People, Peace, Planet,” has attracted nearly 3,700 attendees, including over 800 speakers and delegates from around 130 countries. Participants include current and former heads of state, ministers, lawmakers, diplomats, military leaders, business executives, and prominent thinkers.
Earlier this month, Netherlands Ambassador to India, Marisa Gerards, highlighted the strong bilateral ties between India and the Netherlands. She noted that the Netherlands was one of the first countries to recognize India’s independence and remains a key partner in trade and investment.
“We have a very strong bilateral relationship. We go back a long way. We were one of the first countries to recognize the independence of India. We have a lot of trade and investment,” Gerards told ANI.
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“We are the 4th investor in your country. About 300 different Dutch companies are very active. Also the other way around, we have quite some Indian companies who are also investing in the Netherlands. What we’re working on right now is a strategic partnership to see how we can do more on trade and investment. How we can do more on security, for example, but also do more on innovation and research, and then we have a wide range of different sectors where we work together like on water management, health, agriculture, very important on energy, ports and logistics and climate, and in all these different sectors, innovation and high tech research, it’s all key. And this is, I think, the overview, and it’s a very strong relationship,” she continued.
The Netherlands is working closely with the Indian government and states like Gujarat to advance green energy initiatives. The Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, is also keen to collaborate with India on green energy and hydrogen projects.
