00:00The EU chief is currently in India. She was the chief guest at Republic Day and sending across a big message once again on the trade deal.
00:09Ursula refers to the big flag symbolism, lauding the EU flags that were there at the Kartavya Pad during the Republic Day parade.
00:18If you watched the parade, you would know that at the beginning of the parade, there was clear messaging involved as part of the parade.
00:24EU flags were also raised. And so mentioning that, Ursula has said that this is clear messaging as far as the India-EU story is concerned.
00:35She's again highlighted that there will be a security pact with India.
00:38She's gone viral, of course, for recently referring to the trade deal that's in the works between India and EU as the mother of all deals.
00:46So reactions pouring in right now from the European Union chief. Many would also say that, you know, that what's happening between India and EU right now is crucial for the European Union in light of what's happening with Trump and the kind of bombardment of threats that he's been issuing towards the European Union.
01:03I'll bring back Pranay on this broadcast for more details.
01:05Pranay, important symbolism that we witnessed on the sidelines of the Republic Day parade, but that's just the beginning.
01:11Pranay, tomorrow's when they'll sit down, tomorrow's when you'll see the big takeaways emerge from the EU chief's visit.
01:18Definitely, Akshita. In fact, tomorrow, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ursula von der Leyen and as well as the Antonio Costa, they are going to co-chair the 16th India-EU summit.
01:28And after that India-EU summit, in all likelihood, both EU and India are going to seal what is called as the mother of all deals, the trade deal,
01:38the free trade agreement between India and European Union as the group of nations.
01:45And this is termed as mother of all deals because of the volume it impacts because over 2 billion people, over 25 trillion GDP is getting impacted by this trade deal.
01:56But as you rightly pointed it out, that, you know, this is happening at a time when there is a time which is termed as the time of turbulence in terms of the geopolitics,
02:06in terms of geo-economics, in terms of the trade barriers being raised, the rising protectionism.
02:11And in fact, you have seen the commentary from Europe, which is clearly showing, in fact, Ursula von der Leyen shared on a social media, you know, timeline,
02:19that this is the way we are going to show that how alternatively things can work out between major partners.
02:26This is how we can build relationships.
02:28This is how the partnership should be taken forward.
02:30So this is a big message.
02:31And as you mentioned about the military flags of EU, you know that in recent past, India has set up this new tradition
02:37that whenever we have, you know, a foreign dignitary as special guest,
02:42we have the foreign contingent as well and as well as their military flags on Kartavipat as part of our Republic Day parades.
02:48And that's exactly what the EU chief referred to.
02:50Thanks very much, Pranay, for joining us with those details.
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