Chennai, Sept: Ahead of the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping to be held from 11 to 13 October at Mamallapuram, Tamilnadu Chief Secretary K Shanmugam and Director General of Police (DGP) J K Tripathy along with senior officials inspected the venue today and took stock of the security arrangements.
They visited the Arjuna’s penance, Varaha cave temple, five rathas, Krishna Mandapam to ensure the security measures here are foolproof.
On Friday, a delegation of Chinese officials inspected the world heritage site monuments here, including the famous shore temple ahead of the summit.
The Chinese delegation took stock of various aspects, including security and amenities and looked into the line-up of proposed events during the second edition of the informal summit between the Prime Minister Modi and the Chinese President.
”The delegation visited monuments, including Arjuna’s penance, the shore temple and the huge boulder known as Krishna’s butterball,” officials said.
Krishna’s butterball is a massive round boulder perched on a steep rock slope in this town. This precariously balanced boulder is said to be a hunk of stolen butter dropped by the gods.
Senior Tamilnadu government and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) officials accompanied the delegation and later discussed with Chinese officials, the contours of the summit.
”The Chinese side made some suggestions in respect of fine tuning exclusive amenities to President Xi at Mamallapuram and it was accepted,” an official who was privy to the discussions, said.
Later, a team of ASI officials led by senior official from New Delhi, Jahnwij Sharma inspected the monuments including the butter ball and Shore temple. The officials discussed the line up of events like the monument to be visited first by top leaders and its complete line-up.
”Aspects like photo opportunity and sprucing up the location were discussed,” the official said.