PM Modi concludes Greece visit, departs for India

Athens [Greece], August 25 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for India from Greece's Athens after wrapping up his Greece visit on Friday. 
PM Modi had started his four-day formal tour on August 21 for South Africa and Greece. In South Africa, PM Modi attended the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22-24 at the invitation of the country’s president Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa.
During the Greece Visit, PM held meetings with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Katerina N Sakellaropoulou.
In the meeting with the Greek President, the PM added another feather to his cap, as he was conferred with the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour in Athens, Greece.
President of Greece Katerina N Sakellaropoulou feted PM Modi with the Grand Cross after the latter called on the former during his day-long official visit to Greece.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission and welcomed his invitation to visit India.
In a joint statement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Greece at the invitation of his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis, both countries have agreed to elevate their bilateral ties to a "strategic partnership".
In a breakthrough, the two countries agreed to work to further expand bilateral cooperation in political, security and economic spheres, the India-Greece joint statement underlined. 
Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the business delegations of India and Greece at a business lunch in Athens and urged them to take advantage of the positive momentum in the relations between the two countries.
PM Modi said, "India's doors are wide open for foreign investment. Defence sectors are also being opened. There is immense potential for co-development and co-production. With our digitisation efforts, ease of doing business is also increasing continuously."
The PM also reiterated his mantra of Reform, Perform and Transform and said that the combination of India's demographic power and aspirational youth is strengthening India's economy.
PM Modi also interacted with the Indian diaspora members at the community event organised at the Athens Conservatoire before concluding his Greece Visit. 
PM Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister in the last 40 years to visit Greece. The last Prime Ministerial visit from India to Greece was in 1983.
Prior to the Greece Visit, PM Modi attended the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa’s Johannesburg where the BRICS group of nations decided to include six new members- Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The new membership will be effective from January 1, 2024.
Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) supported the expansion of the grouping, the first such expansion since 2010 when South Africa was inducted into the group.
In the BRICS summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping were seen exchanging a handshake and in brief conversation with each other on Thursday at the BRICS Summit in the South African capital city of Johannesburg. 
Before issuing a joint statement of the 15th BRICS Summit by the leaders of the grouping, PM Modi and the Chinese Premier were seen walking and chatting before they took their designated seats.
Ministry of External Affairs in the press briefing informed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in which he highlighted India's concerns at the unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh with the two leaders agreeing to direct their relevant officials "to intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation".
Addressing a press conference on India’s participation at the 15th BRICS summit, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said Prime Minister Modi had interactions with other BRICS leaders during the summit.
He said PM Modi in his conversation with the Chinese President underlined that the maintenance of peace in the border areas and observing and respecting the LAC are essential for the normalisation of the India-China ties.
The 15th BRICS Summit was held under the Presidency of South Africa.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet and interact with ISRO scientists involved in the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission on Saturday morning, soon after returning from his two-nation visit to South Africa and Greece, a press note said on Friday.
The Prime Minister will visit the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru tomorrow at around 7.15 am.
He will also be briefed about the findings and progress in the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The Prime Minister watched the live telecast of the historic touchdown of lander Vikram from Johannesburg, while he was attending the 15th BRICS Summit.
India took a giant leap on Wednesday evening as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon’s South Pole, making it the first country to have achieved the historic feat and bringing to an end the disappointment over the crash landing of the Chandrayaan-2, four years ago.
India became the fourth country – after the US, China, and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface. The spacecraft was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14.