From farm support to CEOs: Obama to see it all

St Xavier's College ground has been converted into a village farm, with a display of tractors, irrigation piping and mobile refrigerators used for a cold chain storage. The makeshift village and agri expo have been created for US President Barack Obama, visiting the institution on Saturday, to give him an idea of the present state of and new techniques in agriculture.

Further, in the premises, Obama would hold a roundtable with five tycoons - Shashi Ruia, chairman of Essar Group; Ashok Gulati, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute; Rajan Mittal, managing director of Bharti Enterprises and Ficci president; Hari Bhartiya, CII president, and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, vice-chairman of Reliance Capital.

Trade and commerce issues, bilateral and global, are expected to come up for debate.

A senior protocol officer involved in the preparation told Business Standard that Mahindra & Mahindra, Pepsico, ITC, Ingersoll Rand, the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd  and Jain Irrigation are the major participants at tomorrow's agri expo. The US President is expected to discuss with senior executives of these companies about their products and agricultural equipment and their applications.

The later round table with Indian CEOs is expected to be dominate by monetary and fiscal issues, apart from those such as China, protectionism, bilateral trade and investments and so forth. The Mumbai police brass visited and extensively reviewed the arrangements at and around St Xavier's.