East Asia Summit: PM Narendra Modi meets Mike Pence to talk Pak & terrorism

Pitching India as a favourite destinations for investment during his various engagements at the East Asia Summit on Wednesday in Singapore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed commitment for early concision of comprehensive and balanced regional economic partnership agreement namely—the RCEP — to pave way for a free trade between 16 nations. The PM also held many bilateral meetings on the sidelines, notably with US Vice President Mike Pence, his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison and Thai premier PM Prayut Chan-o-cha.

During his meeting with Pence, Modi without naming Pakistan raised the issue of terrorism emanating from that country. He said that all the traces and all the leads in the global terror attacks ultimately leads to a "single source and single place of origin". He also expressed concern over the participation of terrorists in the elections in Pakistan. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, at a briefing, said there was some discussion on the issue of terrorism. Pence referred to the upcoming 10th anniversary of the deadly Mumbai terror attack on November 26 and hailed cooperation between the two sides on counter terrorism, Gokhale said.

Earlier, while delivering the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Summit, Modi said the technology has transformed governance and delivery of public services in India and unleashed innovation, hope and opportunities. He also launched Application Programming Interface Exchange (APIX), a global Fintech platform with Deputy PM of Singapore T Shanmugaratnam.