By IANS,
Mumbai: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mumbai late Friday night to begin her five-day visit to India. She is staying at the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace & Tower – one of the targets of the horrific terror attacks on the city last year.
Her special aircraft landed at 10.15 p.m., with rains and strong winds lashing the airport area. An extra-tight security blanket was thrown around the airport. She drove straight away to the Hotel Taj Mahal.
In a symbolic gesture, Clinton will spend her two-day sojourn in Mumbai at the Arabian Sea-facing hotel.
Clad in a light coloured business suit, Clinton was accorded a warm reception at the Taj Hotel, where she reached after a 45-minute drive amid heavy rains.
Earlier, she was received at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Internationl Airport (CSIA) by central and Maharashtra state protocol officials representatives of the US Consulate and American Centre in Mumbai and US embassy in New Delhi. A few officials held large umbrellas over Clinton to shield her from the rain as she alighted from the aircraft
At around 10.50 p.m., her entourage comprising nearly 25 vehicles started out of the airport to proceed to south Mumbai’s Colaba where the hotel is located.
The motorcade, comprising her staff, government officials, security personnel and US media personnel, zoomed over the newly-opened pride of Mumbai, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. She arrived at the hotel around 11.30 p.m.
She will speak at a commemorative event in the memory of 26/11 victims Saturday morning.
Mumbai police have made elaborate security arrangements at the Taj, outside and at all the roads and venues where she would travel during her engagements in Mumbai Saturday.
Even media personnel were kept a long distance away, more than 300 metres, both at the airport and at the Taj Hotel.
She will also attend a breakfast meeting with around 10 of Mumbai’s top names in the corporate world, including Mukesh Ambani, Swati Piramal, Jamshyd Godrej, Chanda Kochhar. No agenda has been fixed for the meeting.
Her visit would focus on starting the Phase III of the India-US strategic partnership and give a fillip to the civil nuclear and defence ties between the two countries.
Invigorating people-to-people contacts is a major focus of Clinton’s visit.
She will interact with volunteers of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), an NGO, and a social event that will be attended by, among others, film star Aamir Khan. She plans to visit St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai Saturday.
All the scheduled engagements of Clinton will begin Saturday morning. She has no official meetings scheduled with any leaders or officials of the state government, according to the sources.
“The visiting dignitary shall be accorded all the due protocol courtesies. We are also coordinating the security arrangements for her along with the US authorities. All her other engagements in Mumbai are of a private nature in which the state government is not involved in any manner,” said a top state government official.
Clinton will fly to New Delhi Sunday afternoon. She will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and hold talks with her counterpart, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in New Delhi Monday.