Obama arrives in India for first leg of Asia tour

US President Barack Obama arrived in India Saturday on the first leg of a trade-focused Asia tour that will kick off with a sombre tribute to the victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Obama\'s regional trip, which also takes him to Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, is weighted towards prying open new markets for US exports and creating new jobs to ease 9.6 percent unemployment at home.

It comes just days after his Democratic Party\'s drubbing in mid-term elections in which the state of the US economy was a primary source of voter dissatisfaction.

After touching down in Mumbai, Obama and his wife Michelle were helicoptered to the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where they will be the most high-profile guests since the attacks two years ago by 10 Islamist militants that claimed 166 lives.

Obama was to meet survivors and pay tribute to those who died at a memorial erected at the luxury seafront hotel, which was the focus of the militant assault and where 31 people, including 12 staff members, were killed.

Security was extremely tight, with roads closed, a ban enforced on sea traffic off the coast and the plaza near the Taj and Gateway of India monument sealed off.

Some 5,000 security personnel, including US Secret Service, Indian intelligence officials and elite commandos have been deployed around the venues selected for the presidential visit.

At the time of the November 2008 attacks -- likened by some in India to those in the United States on September 11, 2001 -- the then-president-elect said they demonstrated "the grave and urgent threat of terrorism".

He also called for closer ties with India and other countries to root out and destroy extremist networks.

US officials now say that cooperation with India on counter-terrorism is at its highest-ever level, despite India\'s misgivings about US support for its longstanding rival and neighbour Pakistan.

The only surviving gunman from the attacks said they were recruited, trained and equipped by the banned, Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) with support from elements in the country\'s military and intelligence service.

In Mumbai, Obama will also visit the house where the father of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, stayed on visits to the city. The US president has cited Gandhi as a key influence.

He will also speak to Indian entrepreneurs importing US technologies and top US executives from firms like PepsiCo and GE, before giving a speech to an audience including 200 US business leaders.

"The primary purpose (of the India trip) is to take a bunch of US companies and open up markets so that we can sell in Asia and some of the fastest-growing markets in the world," Obama told reporters on Thursday.

A number of major deals are expected to be announced, with Obama lobbying for a series of multi-billion-dollar weapons contracts to upgrade the Indian military.

"President Obama intends this trip to be and intends our policy to be a full embrace of India\'s rise," the president\'s new national security adviser Tom Donilon told reporters on Air Force One.

Relations between the US and India have warmed considerably in the past 10 years, but there are niggling disagreements over issues such as US controls on the export of "dual-use" technology with military and civil applications.

"The key to the visit from India Inc\'s point of view is technology, technology, technology," said Amit Mitra, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

"The key from the president\'s point of view is jobs, jobs, jobs -- and the two must meet together during Obama\'s visit," Mitra said.

Obama moves on to New Delhi on Sunday, where he will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then deliver an address to parliament on Monday.

The next morning he leaves for Indonesia on the second leg of his tour, which will also take him to the G20 summit in South Korea and then on to Japan.