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Russian President Vladimir Putin was guest of honour at India's Republic Day parade, showing warm ties still exist between the former Cold War allies despite New Delhi's growing US tilt.
A tight security blanket was thrown over the capital as Putin, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Abdul Kalam watched the parade showcasing India's military might, technological prowess and cultural diversity.
Singh saluted Putin as a “special friend of India” after the Russian president promised energy-hungry India on Thursday more nuclear reactors and help building atomic energy plants.
Russia “remains indispensable to the core of India's foreign policy interests” though there has been a sea-change in the international situation during the last decade, Singh said.
Putin's presence at India's celebration of its 58th Republic Day was seen as the symbolic highlight of his two-day visit aimed at revitalising ties between Russia and India in the face of New Delhi's increasing US partnership.
The Indian capital was on full alert against possible militant attacks against the parade as 15,000 security forces were deployed across city, police said.
Police said they arrested a militant on the eve of the holiday carrying 2.5 kilogrammes (5.5 pounds) of explosives who was planning to carry out attacks in the capital. The arrest came amid intelligence warnings of possible suicide blasts around Republic Day, police said.
The day marking India's founding as a republic soon after independence from Britain in 1947 has been marred in the past by trouble in Himalayan Kashmir where Islamic separatists are battling New Delhi's rule and in the remote northeast, where a host of militant groups are fighting for independence.
Some 400 armed commandoes were positioned along the parade route and sharpshooters from the elite National Security Guards were posted at strategic spots as part of the massive ground-to-air security apparatus.
Thousands of people forced to trudge on foot to the parade stands because of the closure of the city centre to vehicle traffic due to security concerns watched from the parade.
India rolled out its military hardware — most of it Russian in origin as Moscow is still India's biggest military supplier that was followed by marching bands.
India also tightened security in insurgency-wracked Kashmir in a bid to prevent attacks by separatist rebels, who called a “total strike” against the day.
Kashmiris have spurned Republic Day since the eruption of an insurgency against Indian rule in 1989.
Security was also stepped up in the insurgency-infested northeast where over 80 people have been killed in the past month in an upsurge of militant.
But in a snub to the rebels, people in the northeast defied a general strike called by separatist guerrillas to protest the Republic Day celebrations, officials said.
