New Delhi: At the India-Russia business dialogue, the media was not allowed to attend the closed-door event, but was later admitted to witness the speeches of two ministers.The Federation of Indian Chamber for Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had sent an email invitation to the media on Sunday afternoon on the address of Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar and Russian deputy prime minister and minister of industry and trade Denis Valentinovich Manturov at the India-Russia Business Dialogue on Monday.The event was scheduled for 10:30 am and the media had already started to assemble outside. At around 10:20 am, FICCI sent another email stating, “We just now got update that the above event is a closed door. Sincere apologies for the inconvenience.”The matter came to light to some quarters when Financial Times South Asia bureau chief John Reed tweeted that he “just got kicked out of this event (which I was invited to and registered for) for security reasons”.Reed later tweeted that the person who removed him was Russian and that FICCI had sent the email about it being closed to the media, but that was received just minutes before the start of the Dialogue.An Indian journalist who was also at the event confirmed that a Russian embassy official had asked her to leave when she reached the venue. “I had not seen the email that it was a closed-door event. When I reached, a Russian official charged at me and told me, ‘get out’. It was a bit shocking to hear that tone,” said Nirmala Ganapathy, who reports for Singapore-based Strait Times. She noted that Russian and Indian journalists who were inside the hall in the five-star hotel were also asked to get up and leave the venue.Along with other Indian journalists, she waited outside the event, hoping to speak with participants once they got out.After some discussions between Russian and Indian officials, the reporters, who were still outside, were allowed into the hall to listen to the speeches of the two ministers. “I think there was some negotiation and then we went inside, about an hour after we arrived,” said Ganapathy.Sources said that the event had not been organised by the Indian government, but there had been no objection from the Indian side to the presence of media for the main speeches.Glimpses from India-Russia Business Dialogue organized by FICCI, jointly with the Russian Business Council for Cooperation with India, under the guidance of @MEAIndia at Hotel The Leela Palace, New Delhi.@DrSJaishankar @RusEmbIndia @IndEmbMoscow @moscowgov @shypk @PIB_India pic.twitter.com/znEpJ8KtaJ— FICCI (@ficci_india) April 17, 2023Manturov arrived on Monday on a two-day working visit, with the first day dedicated to meeting with prominent business representatives.On the first day, the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation, Manturov and Jaishankar met with the business representatives from both countries.The visiting Russian deputy prime minister also met with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who had previously visited Moscow in the last year after the start of the Ukraine war. As per official sources, the two discussed a range of bilateral issues to implement the India-Russia strategic partnership.’On Tuesday, Jaishankar and Manturov will chair the plenary meeting of on Tuesday, followed by the signing of the final protocol, as per a Russian embassy press note.Calls for greater India-Russia tradeIn his speech at the Business Dialogue, Manturov claimed that Russia’s GDP had “decreased by merely 2%” last year despite the sanctions. “At the same time, I would like to stress that we are not planning to fence ourselves off from the rest of the world. It is unrealistic and not economically feasible to substitute everything in all sectors of the industry. We do not have such a goal to achieve complete self-sufficiency – it is a dead-end, leading eventually to the loss of competitiveness. As far as certain components and technologies are concerned, we will definitely rely on trusted foreign partners,” he said.The Russian minister said that his country had allowed the import of “original goods without consent of the rights’ owners from unfriendly countries – so-called parallel import”.Calling for greater India-Russia trade, he said that Russia was looking forward to intensifying negotiations for a free trade agreement and an investment protection treaty with India.In his speech, he said that Russia proposed “to consider the possibility of the wide use of national currencies and currencies of friendly countries”.Speaking to ANI outside the event, he said that rupee usage was not enough to boost bilateral trade. “That’s one of the issues which we have discussed with your colleague, so because of lack of input from India, it’s not enough to use the rupee so we need to boost the trade from India and then in this case we are looking at balance like for example, we have with China. We have USD 200 billion trade with China and it’s balanced,” he told the Indian news agency.Meanwhile, Jaishankar said that India remains committed to a multipolar world. According to the statement issued by the ministry of external affairs, he said, “Russia is looking towards Asia and for India, it could mean broadening of ties. What we make of the current situation depends very much on us.”Continuing further, Jaishankar described the relationship between India and Russia as the “steadiest” in the world. “As a Foreign Minister, let me try to place the economic cooperation in a strategic context. Our partnership today is a subject of attention and comment, not because it has changed, but because it has not. Indeed, it has been among the steadiest of the major relationships of the world in the contemporary era.But that by itself is not enough. We share a commitment to a multi-polar world. And that also means a multi-polar Asia. Russia is today looking much more towards Asia, a reassessment from its traditional focus. For India, this could mean a broadening out of our engagement that was overly reliant on the triad of military, nuclear and space cooperation. For Russia also, it presents a broader set of options.”