Hundreds had gathered to give a civic reception to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in San Jose.
Queues, shaking of hands and selfies -- the Imperial ballroom of San Jose's Fairmont hotel bubbled over with excitement as Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached today on the penultimate leg of his five-day US tour.
Hundreds of expat Indians had organised a civic reception for Mr Modi -- the first Prime Minister to visit the Silicon Valley in 33 years.
The Prime Minister -- who was welcomed at the airport by Mayor Sam Liccardo -- was greeted outside the hotel by crowds raising pro-Modi slogans.
Once he was inside, people queued up to greet him and click photographs, sometimes staying so long that his security personnel had to intervene and ask them to move along.
The civic reception was followed by meetings with members of the Sikh and Gujarati communities.
The visit to the Silicon Valley -- where Indians play a leading role in organisations like Google and Microsoft -- is part of PM Modi's push to drive technological innovation in India.
"Prime Minister Modi's visit will undoubtedly bring the US and Indian tech sectors closer together, helping to deepen our strong and growing economic ties," said Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Later today, the Prime Minister is expected to visit the offices of Tesla Motors in California's Palo Alto to see the path-breaking inventions on renewable energy.
It will be followed by a series of meetings with the heads of top executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen and Google's Sundar Pichai. He will also be visiting the offices and Facebook and Google.
The packed weekend will end with another civic reception by the Indian diaspora - one in the style of his last year's reception at New York's Madison Garden. This will be held at the SAP Centre - a large indoor stadium in San Jose.
Around 45,000 people are expected to attend the event, even though the stadium can seat only 18,000. For the rest, who will be outside the venue, massive television screens have been put up and other arrangements have been made.