Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in India on a six-day visit during which she will meet India's leaders as well as friends from her school and college days in Delhi.
An icon of the pro-democracy movement in her country, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi flashed a traditional ‘namaste’ after stepping out of the aircraft that brought her from Yangon.
This will be Suu Kyi's first visit to India in nearly 40 years, according to newsmagazine Irrawaddy.
An aide said that she would rest for most of Tuesday, enjoying the colourful festival of Diwali, before beginning her engagements on Wednesday.
Suu Kyi will begin her day on Wednesday by visiting Rajghat and Shantivan, paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and follow it up with a meeting with PM Manmohan Singh.
Suu Kyi studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School and graduated in political science from Lady Shri Ram College when her mother was Burma's envoy to India. The mother and daughter — Suu Kyi's father was a friend of Nehru— lived in the 1960s on 24, Akbar Road, now the Congress party headquarters.
On the political level, she said she wanted closer relations between the people of the two countries because a gulf had emerged in recent years.
India is also keen for a greater engagement with the multi-party polity in Myanmar, where President Thein Sein has implemented a series of economic and political reforms since 2011.
On Wednesday, she will also deliver the Nehru Memorial Lecture on the occasion of his birth anniversary. Suu Kyi is also scheduled to meet Vice President Hamid Ansari, Speaker Meira Kumar, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
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