Putin also promised to give India a broader access to Russia's vast hydrocarbon wealth.

On the sidelines of Putin's visit, India's state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. signed a deal with Russia' state-controlled OAO Rosneft to jointly bid for exploration and refining projects, ONCG said in a statement.

"We will strongly support that, as well as cooperation with other Russian oil companies," Putin told a Russian-Indian business forum.

India is already a shareholder via the state-run ONGC Videsh Ltd. in the Sakhalin-1 oilfields, which have started production, and Putin said it could be offered a share in the prospective Sakhalin-3 project.

Energy cooperation is vital for India, which has struggled to supply adequate power to its burgeoning economy that has been growing at more than 8 percent in recent years. Despite India's rapid recent development, power cuts remain frequent across the country.

In a separate deal Thursday, India also was given access to Russia's satellite navigation system, GLONASS. The two nations signaled their intent to forge ahead with military ties with two new arms deals: an agreement allowing the licensed production of Russian aircraft engines in India, and another for the joint development of a military transport plane.

India also agreed to join Russia in building a next-generation fighter plane which is to take to the air in 2009 and compete with the US F-35 in global markets. Mikhail Pogosian, the head of Russia's Sukhoi aircraft maker, which is building the plane, told reporters Thursday that the project envisages a shared funding and joint research.

Signifying the importance India attaches to Russia, Singh broke with protocol to personally welcome Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, as well as officials and a delegation of high-profile Russian business leaders at the airport - an honor previously given only to President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah.

"This has been a significant visit both for its symbolism and for its substantive content," said C. Uday Bhaskar of the Institute for Defense and Strategic Analyses, a New Delhi-based think tank. "A resurgent Russia and a more confident India are reiterating their decades-old relationship."

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