- On 26 January 2016 India will celebrate 67th Republic Day.
- French President Francois Hollande will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in Delhi.
- Hollande landed at the international airport in Chandigarh on Sunday and will fly to Delhi in the evening.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Hollande in Chandigarh.
- They visited the Rock Garden, the Capitol Complex, and the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh.
Chandigarh was designed by a Swiss-French architect named Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris).
In presence of Modi and Hollande, 16 Business-to-Business agreements were signed between French and Indian companies.
After day 1 in Chandigarh, French President Francois Hollande has reached Delhi. He was received by Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State for Environment, Forest & Climate Change at the Palam Air Force station in Delhi.
On 25 January, President Hollande is scheduled to inaugurate the interim secretariat of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), an initiative launched by him and PM Modi at the Climate Change summit in Paris.
President Hollande will also lay the foundation stone of the headquarters of ISA, which is aimed at increasing utilisation and promotion of solar energy in solar-rich nations.
The event will be held at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gurgaon.
ISA, an initiative of PM Modi, is an alliance of 121 solar resource rich countries lying fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
French President Francois Hollande has said that he will discuss the inter-governmental agreement on 36 Rafale fighter planes during his three-day India visit.
CEOs Forum
After the visiting the Rock Garden and the Capitol Complex, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande meet a delegation of CEO’s from both the countries at the Government Museum and Art Gallery.
The two attended a CEO forum followed by a business summit with CEOs.
Francois Hollande, President of France at the Business SummitMy visit to India has two main goals: Consolidate strategic partnership with India and implementation of decisions taken during PM Modi’s visit to France.
Watch the two leaders’ address at the forum live here:
In the presence of the two, 16 Business-to-Business Agreements were signed between French and Indian companies.
Museum and Art Gallery
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande visit the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh.
The two leaders congratulated the Indo-French team of archeologists who have discovered a site which is possibly dates human activities from 2.6 million years ago in Chandigarh’s Masol region.
Prime Minister’s OfficeThe Prime Minister and President Hollande congratulated the Indo-French team for their joint research work leading to this discovery. They underlined that this example of successful bilateral collaboration illustrated the long-standing cultural ties and enduring collaboration between India and France.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande visit the Capitol Complex in Chandigarh.
The complex houses the Assembly, the Secretariat, and the High Court of the union territory which serves as the capital of Punjab and Haryana states.