French President to commence India tour with visit to ISRO

The French President is slated to land at the HAL airport at 10:00 AM by a special French aircraft, from where he will head to the Leela Palace hotel located on the old Airport Road.He will then proceed to ISRO Satellite Centre and deliver an address to some 500 attendees, who comprise scientists from ISRO and other institutions, senior executives of various companies and students.

Sarkozy is highly likely to have a brief interaction with top officials of ISRO, who are expected to take him on a short visit around the ISRO facility.The focus is expected to be on Indo-French space collaborative projects, the Megha Tropiques and SARAL.

Megha-Tropiques (Megha meaning cloud in Sanskrit and Tropiques in French meaning Tropics), being jointly developed by ISRO and French National Space Agency (CNES), is expected to be launched by 2011 to study tropical climate.

Another ISRO-CNES mission to be launched next year is SARAL (Satellite for Argos and Altika) for seasonal forecast, oceanography and climate studies.

Commenting on Sarkozy's visit, former ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair, said, "We have strong relationship with the French space agency. We worked together on many projects. The Megha-Tropiques and Saral are the two projects that are going to be realised soon.

This we have been working for last several years and I am sure it will pave way for more stronger collaboration for the future". The visit would provide momentum to the projects, he said.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened in and around the city in view of Sarkozy's visit. Police personnel have been stationed at the old airport, at the hotel and ISRO, police sources said.

The President would also be accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni. A delegation of seven ministers and business honchos would also accompany the President during his India tour.Valerie Pecresse, the French Minister for Higher Education and Research, would inaugurate the Bangalore Consulate, its fourth in India, tomorrow.The President will visit Agra, Delhi and Mumbai during his tour.Sarkozy would leave here around 1:50 PM police said.