Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director, Observer Research Foundation America, was Quoted in The Japan Times Article by Gabriel Dominguez titled: “India-Japan defense ties enter new phase with first joint fighter drills”: “The continuing sophistication of India-Japan military exercises represents a natural development and growing comfort between the two countries. Ties have grown gradually since the year 2000, but the recent establishment of regular air and ground exercises — after many years of primarily maritime cooperation — represents a qualitatively different stage in the relationship. Relations, including security relations, have grown quite impressively, but I worry that we are also at something of a plateau. A lot will depend on Japan’s ability to see through expectations on defense spending and military modernization, and on India’s part, its ability to project power in traditional and new domains.”
Quoted in The Japan Times Article by Gabriel Dominguez titled “India and Japan to deepen ties amid growing Indo-Pacific tensions”: “India and Japan have gradually become trusted partners on Asian and global issues — and especially over the past few years. For India, Japan has traditionally been a less controversial partner than even the United States or Australia, which is why “it is a relationship that people across the Indian political system want to see improve". Japan is able to provide official development assistance in a manner that only few other countries can, and this has been vital to India’s development of industrial corridors, public transit networks … and strategically important highways and bridges in India’s underdeveloped northeast region.”