Germany's Baerbock begins India trip with visit to Gandhi memorial

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has begun her two-day visit to India by commemorating Mahatma Gandhi, a key figure in India's struggle for independence from Britain.
Shortly after her arrival in the capital New Delhi, Germany's top diplomat and her delegation travelled to Gandhi Smriti. It is customary to scatter rose petals at the memorial site where Gandhi was assassinated in 1948.
Baerbock was due to meet her Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, for talks next.
During her first official trip to India, the German foreign minister is to place environmental concerns and a rules-based international order at the centre of talks with political leaders.
Amid German concerns over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly aggressive China, the Green politician said she aimed to raise "the most urgent tasks of our time: containing the climate crisis and preserving our international order based on rules."
Ahead of her departure, Baerbock had announced that she would sign a mobility agreement in New Delhi "that will make it easier for our people to study, conduct research and to work in each other's country."
On Thursday, India took over as chair of the G20 comprising most of the world's largest economies.
India, a nuclear power with some 1.4 billion inhabitants, has refused to participate in sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries and abstained on UN resolutions on the war in Ukraine.