Bangalore, June 20 (IANS) Visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Friday had a first-hand view of the progress and achievements made by India’s IT hub in space research, IT and management on a day-long tour of the city. Accompanied by his wife and a high-level delegation, Assad’s first port-of-call was the satellite centre of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), where he showed keen interest in knowing about India’s first moon mission - Chandrayaan-1 - and various technologies deployed for space applications and programmes.

Assad was treated to a visit of the satellite centre where the lunar orbital spacecraft is being integrated and tested for its maiden launch later this year.

ISRO director T.K. Alex made a presentation on India’s space activities to Assad and the delegation.

“Appreciating the development of India in science arena, Assad said his country was looking forward to cooperating with India in space applications for societal needs. He also expressed interest in collaborating with India to use its space expertise for the socio-economic development of his country,” an ISRO official told IANS.

Later, Assad visited Infosys Technologies in electronics city, on the outskirts of Bangalore, to see the IT bellwether’s global delivery model and how it serves clients worldwide in bits and bytes.

Top Infosys officials took the Syrian president and the first lady on a guided tour of the sprawling green campus and its world class facilities where about 23,000 engineers write software codes to develop products and solutions.

Assad also interacted with the faculty and students of Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-B) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM-B) for a first-hand account of their activities, programmes and projects.

Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur hosted a dinner for Assad and his delegation at Raj Bhavan late Friday.

Assad will leave for Syria Saturday at the end of his five-day maiden visit to India.