Two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government lifted a seven-year-long ban on Italy’s Leonardo SpA and allowed it to take part in bidding for defence contracts in India, New Delhi and Rome on Thursday agreed to negotiate a defence deal and explore co-development and co-production of military hardware. This would be turned into a bilateral agreement later to counter irregular migration and trafficking of human beings, to examine pathways to facilitate labour mobility and to promote fair working conditions, with the aim of addressing the needs of the respective economies, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting between the two leaders. Meloni noted that Italy-India bilateral trade had doubled to reach Euro 15 billion in two years