NEW DELHI, Jan 26: Russian President Vladimir Putin was guest of honour on Friday at India's Republic Day parade, showing that 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, in a bullet-proof enclosure, watched the display of military pomp, technological prowess and vast cultural diversity.

Mr 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. Mr Singh saluted Mr Putin as a “special friend of India”, the day after the Russian president promised the energy-hungry country more nuclear reactors and help in 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, Mr Singh said. The Russian leader watched as India's armed forces, the fourth-largest in the world, were on full display with officers in battle regalia marching down the capital's main avenue accompanied by military pipe bands.

Tanks and missiles — much of them Russian in origin as Moscow is still India's biggest military supplier — rolled by, followed by folk dancers and fighter aircraft performing aerial acrobatics.

New Delhi was on full alert against possible militant attacks as 15,000 security forces were deployed across the city and airspace closed overhead to commercial flights.

Police said they arrested a militant on the eve of the holiday carrying 2.5kg of explosives who planned to stage attacks in New Delhi. The arrest came amid intelligence warnings of possible suicide blasts around Republic Day, police said.

In a Republic Day message, President Kalam said he was confident India with its booming economy would become a developed nation before 2020 with no poverty and 100 per cent literacy. “I visualise even before the year 2020 that a prosperous India is possible,” he 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 occupied Kashmir where militants are battling New Delhi's rule and in the far-flung northeast, where a host of militant groups are fighting for independence.

Some 400 armed commandos 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 operation. Thousands of people were forced to trudge on foot to the parade because of the closure of the city centre to vehicle traffic due to security concerns.

India also tightened security in occupied Kashmir in a bid to prevent attacks by extremists, who called a “total strike” to protest against the day. Kashmiris have spurned Republic Day since the eruption of a campaign against Indian rule in 1989.—AFP