Putin cites India’s example on preserving ‘unity in diversity’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited India as an example of preserving “unity in diversity” in the age of artificial intelligence.

Countries like Russia and India should attach importance to their cultural variety, he told the annual meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights via video conference on Tuesday.

“I was just in India, there are one and a half billion people,” Putin said. “But only one-third speaks Hindi, maybe 500 million, maybe 600, and everyone else speaks other languages, and often they don’t understand one another.”

Nothing the similarities between the nations, the Russian leader added, “So for massive and huge countries like ours and India, who are civilization-states, this is critically important. This unity and diversity or rather unity in diversity is something that we must preserve.”

Putin welcomed the idea of a state program to support languages in Russia.

“As for the languages, there are 270 [languages in Russia]. I don’t even know, it’s actually difficult to count, if we talk about some nuances. But the idea is very good – to use artificial intelligence to support language models,” he said.

Russia and India signed more than a dozen bilateral agreements affecting the media, space, and pharma sectors during Putin’s visit last week.

Moscow wants “multifaceted relations” with New Delhi in various sectors, the Russian president said during the visit.

RT India’s English-language broadcast was also launched during Putin’s trip.