New Delhi, Aug. 25 -- NEW DELHI - The bill for cooking gas, diesel, and fertilizer in rural India is not set in Moscow. But it is shaped there, more now than at any point in the country's post-independence history.

simultaneous engagement with both major Asian powers, on India's own terms.

Putin made his own read of the meeting explicit in opening remarks. "I am pleased to note that our trade has increased this year," he said, according to TASS. "It declined slightly last year, but it is growing this year." He described cooperation as spanning "virtually all areas" of the bilateral relationship. India's external affairs ministry, responding from New Delhi, went further, characterizing economic cooperation with Russia as having grown "ve...