Cornell President David Skorton and a delegation of university officials and faculty members will meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other high-level officials in government, business and education during a visit to New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad from Jan. 1 to 8. The aim is to learn more about India and its increasingly important role in the world and to help foster closer links and discuss the future of Cornell's relationships in India.

First, the delegation will meet with top policy planners and administrators to discuss opportunities for augmenting Cornell-India partnerships in support of economic development in such areas as agriculture, biotechnology, health care, information technology and rural development. The Cornellians will meet with Singh and top officials in the Department of Agriculture Research and Education, the Department of Biotechnology and the Ministry of Information Technology.

The second component of the visit entails academic meetings at such academic institutions as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science in Banagalore.

The delegation also will meet with global business leaders and Cornell alumni, including Cornell trustees Ratan N. Tata, B.Arch '62, who is chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., the holding company of the Tata Group, India's largest industrial conglomerate, and N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of the board and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Ltd., the largest information technology company in India.

"The Cornell community has long appreciated India's groundbreaking achievements in the areas of education, science and technology, literature and culture and industry -- achievements that are, in many ways, the envy of the world," said Skorton. "For all these reasons, we seek deeper collaborations with the people of India, whose friendship with Cornell University has a long history and a bright future."

Members of the Cornell delegation also include Charles Phlegar, vice president for alumni affairs and development; Thomas Bruce, vice president for university communications; David Wippman, vice provost for international relations and professor of law; Ronnie Coffman, international professor of plant breeding and genetics and director of international programs for Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Banoo Parpia, director of Cornell's international regional office; and K. Vijayraghavan, director of Sathguru Management Consulting and regional coordinator for Cornell.