Hillary Clinton in India: Day Three Addressing the Consulate Staff

On Sunday, July 19th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton started the day by addressing the Mumbai Consulate General staff during an event at the Crystal Ballroom of the Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai.

After introducing a few new ambassadors, there were three key points the Secretary wanted to make:

"I am committed to elevating diplomacy and development to be on an equal par with defense, as part of our foreign policy. And, to that end, the State Department will be doing the very first quadrennial diplomacy and development review with USAID so that we can present our own framework of what we stand for, and what we've worked to achieve.

We want to keep improving and working harder on all of the parts of America's presence around the world. And here in India, what that means is that President Obama and I are very committed to taking our relationship with India to the next level. And it's not just government-to-government.

We want to deepen our connections between the people of the United States and the people of India, between the business sector, between the education and health sector, all NGOs. We really want to make this as broad and positive a relationship as possible.

And that brings me to all of you. The U.S. consulate in Mumbai is one of the busiest consulates in the world... And I am pleased that by 2010 you will be able to move into the new consulate complex. You are replacing history with modernity and new technology and a lot of the other needs that you have been telling us are required.

And finally... I wanted to stay here at Taj to send a very strong message about our country's commitment to working with India in the fight against terrorism. And I had the opportunity to see the memorial plaque in the lobby and the tree of life which survived the fire on the sixth floor of the old part of the hotel... They are working to reopen the entire hotel by the end of the year. And they are very much a walking reminder of how important it is to stand against those who would bring death and havoc on people who are going about their daily lives..."

And with that, the Secretary was wheels up and on her way to New Dehli!

Read the full transcript of the event here!