Before talking in person, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi have reached out to each other via Twitter quite often. Modi is one of the three people whom Abe claims to follow on social media.

Abe's most recent tweet expressed his eagerness to meet with Modi days before his Indian guest embarked on a five-day visit to Japan, which started Saturday. On Monday the two elevated the Japan-India relationship to the "special strategic and global partnership".

Japan and India will launch a "two plus two" dialogue, involving their foreign and defense ministers. Japan has such dialogues with only the United States, Australia and France.