Indian industrialists to take part in PM Modi’s power lunch with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu

A CEO says they are looking forward to PM Narendra Modi’s power lunch and his vision for Make in India with Israel before he departs for the G-20 meeting in Germany on July 6.

Updated on: Jul 4, 2017, 17:23:03 IST

Hindustan Times, Jerusalem | By Shishir Gupta

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Barely hours before Narendra Modi was greeted by Benjamin Netanyahu at the Ben Gurion airport, a group of Indian industrialists arrived in Tel Aviv to participate in the India-Israel CEOs Forum and listen to the two Prime Ministers at the power lunch on July 6.

Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York on September 28, 2014. (File Photo)

Modi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.

Over the next two days, 13 CEOs of Israeli companies -- including Joseph Weiss of Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Uzi Landau of RAFAEL Advance Defense Systems -- will interact with 18 Indian CEOs to hammer our new business deals.

The Indian delegation led by Pankaj Patel of Cadilla comprises, among others, Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge, Dilip Shangvi of Sun Pharma, AB Jain of Jain Irrigation Systems, Harshavardhan Neotia of Ambuja Neotia, Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys and Pratik Kumar of Wipro.

Read | PM Modi’s Israel trip shows India’s mature approach with focus on economic, security gains | Opinion

The India-Israel CEOs forum are likely to sign a number of MoU in areas of defence, agriculture, irrigation and information technology.

Talking to Hindustan Times, one of the CEOs said that they were looking forward to PM Modi’s power lunch and his vision for Make in India with Israel before he departs for the G-20 meeting in Germany on July 6 afternoon.

A large number of Indian CEOs are looking for tie-ups in manufacture of defence material and latest agricultural technologies.

Already a number of Indian companies like Wipro have tied up or invested into Israeli company with an eye towards the Make in India pie.

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The Indian CEOs will also be interacting with the Israeli government for understanding the process involved in setting up of new joint ventures.

Modi will hold talks with Netanyahu to advance sales and production of missiles, drones and radar systems under the Make in India drive. India is now Israel’s biggest arms market, buying weapons at an average of $1 billion each year.

The two sides are also expected to announce strategic partnerships in areas including water, agriculture and space technology.

Modi will be discussing a plan for Israeli help in boosting India’s food security.

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The plan is to expand 26 agriculture expertise centres that Israel has set up in 15 Indian states to help increase output of everything from vegetables to mangoes and pomegranates.

Modi wants Indian companies involved in turning these small centres into commercial entities that would help tens of thousands of farmers to boost productivity.

(With agency inputs)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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