US President Donald Trump (right) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands during the bilateral meeting at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines on Monday.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Manila for the ASEAN Summit, India focussed on the Indo-Pacific region, counter terrorism and aggressive posturing of certain nations.

The tone and tenor was set even ahead of his visit as India, US, Japan and Australia got together to revive an alliance called the Quadrilateral.

The four countries had met "for consultations on the issues of common interest in the Indo-Pacific region", the Indian ministry of external affairs said in a statement.

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar in a media briefing on Monday downplayed the Quad meeting, saying there was just a passing reference to it during the Modi-Trump bilateral as it was just a meet of junior officials.

In his inimitable but now predictable style, Modi addressed the Indian community in Manila reminding them of India's non-expansionist ideology, having highlighted the achievements of his government by also invoking Mahatma Gandhi. Claiming that

India in 5,000 years, has not hurt anybody, Modi said: "India has always contributed to world peace. Our contingent in the UN Peacekeeping Forces is among the biggest. India is the land of Mahatma Gandhi, peace is integral to our culture," he said.

With the visit to Philippines, India draws a complete circle in its 'Act East Policy' by having visited all 10 ASEAN nations in the first three years of Modi administration The focus of the Indian establishment was to find ways and alternatives on land as also in sea to counter the growing aggressiveness of China in the region.

The meeting between Modi and Trump in Manila on Monday was one of the significant bilateral meetings - on the sidelines of the 31st ASEAN Summit.

While Modi emphasised the need to converge interests and said "Relations between India and US are growing. Our relations go beyond, we are working for future interests of Asia and humanity", Trump described Modi as a "great gentleman", adding that the two would continue to work together.

"PM Narendra Modi is here. We had met at the White House before. He has become a friend of ours. He is doing a great job. A lot of things were solved and we will continue to work together," the President said.

Mail Today has learnt that China came up during discussions between Trump and Modi, where the US president "shared his impressions" of his recent visit to Beijing.

As per Jaishankar, "both sides discussed the concerns regarding North Korth's nuclear programme, state of affairs in the Middle East." India made it a point to refer to Pakistan through the issue of terrorism and proliferation linkages.

Prime Minister's focus has also been to make India one of the top investing destinations.

Modi advocated that investors should look at India as their future business destination as his government would continue to work on issue of "ease of doing business".