During her stay in New Delhi, Speaker of US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The details of her meeting with the prime minister have already been worked out.
"Yes, she is meeting Dr Singh on Monday," Dr S Baru told rediff.com on Saturday morning. According to sources, the two leaders are expected to discuss the India-United States civil nuclear deal, amongst other things.
The Congress office is yet to disclose details of her one to one talks with Sonia Gandhi. Due to security reasons, US Embassy officials are not willing to disclose her schedule. She is expected to meet with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on March 20th.
Even the office of the President of India feigned ignorance about the request from Pelosi's office to meet President Pratibha Patil.
"Thousands of requests are received. We get to know about the schedule of the President only a day before when the list of the engagements for the next day is sent to us," a senior functionary of President's public relations department told rediff.com.
Pelosi's visit to Dharmsala will assume added importance in the wake of the recent protests in Tibet, in which 10 persons were killed during a Chinese military crackdown. Pelosi is likely to meet the Dalai Lama with Hollywood actor Richard Gere on March 22.
This will be Gere's first visit to India since the infamous kissing episode involving himself and Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. A number of cases were slapped against Gere in various courts of law in connection with that incident, and even a non-bailable warrant had been issued against Gere. The matter was, however, disposed off by the apex court on Friday evening.
Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, who headed the bench, while disposing off the case, said that filing such cases brought a bad name to the country.
Meanwhile, over 60 young Tibetans were arrested by the Delhi police when they tried to storm the Chinese Embassay on Saturday evening.
Among those who were arrested included women protesters.
"I have no idea whether the protestors belong to the Tibetan Youth Congress or not, but we have arrested sizeable number of them; mostly boys," an official from the assistant commissioner of police Chankyapuri's office told rediff.com.
The protestors began gathering around the Chinese Embassy around 11 am in the high security zone to express their anger against the manner in which the Chinese administration had treated the monks demostrating against the Chinese government.
The Delhi police swung into action and quickly rounded up all those who had turned up for participating in the demonstration.
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