India inked science and tech deals with Myanmar on Tuesday, as well as pledging to train judges and build houses in crisis-hit Rakhine state, as Delhi cosies up to the strategically important Southeast Asian country. Both China and India covet Myanmar's growing domestic market, natural resources as well as access to key ports.
Delhi has helped finance a deepwater port in Rakhine's capital Sittwe, as money flows in from partners across the region eager to gain a foothold in Myanmar's poor western state, which has a long coastline facing the Bay of Bengal. On Tuesday, India's President Shri Ram Nath Kovind was greeted with the full pomp and circumstance of a guard of honour before meeting Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.
The two countries discussed how India would help with the return of Rohingya refugees, after a brutal military crackdown last year forced some 720,000 over the border from Rakhine state into Bangladesh.