Apple CEO in Delhi on 2nd leg of India visit; tours crafts museum, Lodhi Art District

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on the second leg of his India visit arrived in Delhi where he went around the crafts museum and the famous Lodhi Art district on Wednesday ahead of opening the companys second official retail store in the country and meeting political bigwigs including Prime Minister Narendra ModiCook who began his India visit on April 17 met badminton greats including Gopichand and Saina Nehwal visited Akanksha Foundation school that teaches children from lowincome communities and toured the Indian School of Design amp Innovation in Mumbai after the launch of Apples first retail store in the cityThis is his first trip to India in seven years the last being in 2016 when the tech giant was just beginning to scale up operations in the countryApple has long wanted physical retail stores in India Its original plans for 2021 were derailed because of the Covid19 pandemicAfter opening the first official store in Mumbai Cook arrived in the national capital on the second leg of the visit on Wednesday Ahead of the opening of theApple store at Saket he visited the mesmerising artistic lanes of Lodhi Art DistrictAlso read Applersquos first store opens in India Tim Cookrsquos lsquohellorsquo to MumbaiDelhis Lodhi Art District is a remarkable public space Congratulations to the Start India Foundation and so many amazing artists for capturing Indian life so powerfully And thank you to Dattaraj Naik for showing me how you design your murals on iPad 62yearold Cook tweetedThe walls of buildings lined up in the entire area don beautiful murals that the city is famous forCook who had started the India visit by having Mumbais famous vada pav with Bollywood queen Madhuri Dixit then visited the National Crafts Museum and Hastkala AcademyI couldve spent the whole day at the National Crafts Museum amp Hastkala Academy From ancient and vibrant textiles to impossibly intricate wood carvings it displayed Indias deepiquestand deeply beautifuliquest culture of craft Thanks Sarah Sham and Ruchika Sachdeva for showing me around he tweeted with pictures of the museumAfter throwing open the gates of Apples first store Cook on Tuesday stepped out for a tour of Mumbai starting with a oneonone with some of the biggest badminton players in the countryGreat meeting Coach Gopichand and badminton champions Saina Nehwal Srikanth Kidambi Chirag Shetty and Parupalli Kashyap who have played a part in putting badminton on the map for India We served smashed and talked about how Apple Watch helps them train he had said after that meetingThe tech giant company cofounded by Steve Jobs completes more than 25 years in India this weekFrom sports to music He met Indian classical singer and software engineer Sandeep RanadeI really enjoyed seeing the many ways that Kiddopia is helping preschoolers learn And Sandeep Ranade from Naadsadhana gave such a moving performance of the song Mile Sur Mera Tumhara The vibrant developer community here in India is making such an impact on the world he had tweetedThat was followed by a visit to the Akanksha Foundation schoolI met the most incredible group of students and teachers at an Akanksha Foundation school where children that might not have otherwise had the opportunity are given the chance to reach for their dreams These students embody perseverance and hope Were proud to support them he had saidCook will attend the opening of a second store in the capital Delhi on ThursdayThe new stores come at a time when Apple is trying to deepen its retail push in India the worlds second largest smartphone market India is also home to factories that produce 5 per cent of total iPhones as Apple diversifies its supply chains away from ChinaThe iPhone is still an aspirational product in the pricesensitive Indian market where more than 95 per cent of smartphones run on Googles Android platformCook is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as other ministers including Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and deputy IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar as part of his visitThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever