The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge paid their respects to Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi on Monday and met with young entrepreneurs in India’s financial capital of Mumbai to speak with the country’s next generation of business leaders.
On the second day of their weeklong royal tour of India, Britain’s Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, placed a wreath and bowed their heads as they stood in front of a memorial for Gandhi in New Delhi. They then toured a museum near the spot where the independence leader was assassinated in 1948.
Prior to that, William and Kate laid a wreath at a memorial to honor Indian soldiers who had died in World War I.
The royal couple spent the first part of the day in Mumbai, where they met with the young entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists likely to fund some of their enterprise ideas. Kate, dressed in a cream wool crepe outfit, smiled and waved at crowds of onlookers who had gathered outside the cafe where the meeting was held.
In the evening, the couple attended a garden party in New Delhi to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday, which is April 21. William addressed a large gathering of prominent Indians at the reception to speak about his grandmother, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
The prince said his trip to India celebrated the link between Britain and India, which was part of the British empire before gaining independence in 1947. He also read out a message from Queen Elizabeth hailing the “enduring friendship, shared culture and business opportunities between the two countries.”
William and Kate are traveling without their two children — 2 1/2-year-old Prince George and 11-month-old Princess Charlotte. They had taken George to Australia with them in 2014 on their last royal tour.
On Tuesday, the royal couple will sit down for lunch with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, before traveling to the Kaziranga National Park, home to two-thirds of the world’s Indian one-horned rhinos, in the northeastern state of Assam.
They’ll also take a one-day trip to neighboring Bhutan at the invitation of the Himalayan kingdom’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema.
William and Kate will then head back to India, where they’ll wind up their tour with a visit to the Taj Mahal, retracing the steps of a 1992 visit to the monument of love by William’s mother, the late Princess Diana.
