President Patil hosts At Home on 64th I-Day at Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi: The President, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, hosted the customary At Home function on the occaion of 64th Independence Day here on Sunday evening at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Instead of the gardens, it was organised inside the
Ashoka Hall due to inclement weather. The Vice-President, Mohammad Hamid Ansari,
the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur, Congress President
Sonia Gandhi, and other dignitaries attended the function. Union External Affairs
Minister S.M.Krishna, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister
A.K.Antony, MoS for Defence M. Pallam Raju, Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader
and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Leader of the Opposition
in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Communist Party of India leader D.Raja, National
Conference leader and Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah,
Planning Commission of India’s Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Army
Chief General V.K.Singh, were present. The U.S. Ambassdor to India Timothy J Roemer
and Pakistan High Commissoner to India Shahid Malik were among other distinguished
guests.
