Mumbai: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mumbai late on Friday night to begin her five-day visit to India.
Her special aircraft landed at 2215 hrs IST, with rains and strong winds lashing the airport. An extra-tight security blanket was thrown around the airport.
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. Officials held large umbrellas over Clinton to shield her from the rain as she alighted from the aircraft.
At around 2250 hrs IST, her entourage comprising nearly 25 vehicles started out of the airport to proceed to south Mumbai's Colaba. The motorcade, which comprised her staff, government officials, security personnel and US media personnel, passed through the new Bandra-Worli sea link.
In a symbolic gesture, Clinton will spend the night at the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, which was one of the sites targeted during the terror attacks in Mumbai in November.
She will speak at a commemorative event in the memory of attack victims on Saturday morning.
Among the first engagements Saturday morning would be 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.
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 on Saturday.
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 on 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 on Monday.
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