In the post-Soviet era, trade flow from Russia to India was restricted to defence. That changed in the mid-2000s when Russian conglomerate Sistema Asia Fund, a proprietary venture capital fund, joined hands with Shyam Group to grab a pie of India’s telecom sector. The $10-billion entity tried its luck in the telecom and broadband market under MTS India. Its decade-long journey, however, bore little fruit. In 2012, the Supreme Court cancelled 21 of the 22 licences awarded to MTS, forcing it to down shutters. The entity was then sold off to Reliance Communications in 2016.