KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has left for India to participate in the BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit, on Saturday morning. Dahal is leading an 18-member delegation to the Outreach Summit that would be preceded by a Retreat Meeting of the leaders of BIMSTEC on October 16. Prime Minister Dahal is also scheduled to address the Retreat and the Outreach Summit. The Summit is expected to provide an important occasion to explore areas of partnership between the two dynamic groups of countries, according to the Ministry. Similarly, the Retreat of BIMSTEC leaders is likely to discuss matters pertaining to terrorism, environment and climate change, disaster management, connectivity, agriculture, energy , trade, technology, tourism, poverty alleviation and people-to-people contact. On the sidelines of the Summit, Dahal is to hold meetings with the leaders of the BRICS (a common forum of five emerging global economies, namely: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and BIMSTEC (the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) members. He is also scheduled to have bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, South African President Jacob Zuma and Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay. Dahal is accompanied by his spouse Sita Dahal. Other members of the delegation include Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat, Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi, Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Tanka Mani Sharma and other senior government officials. DPM and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi, Ministers, High Ranking government officials, chiefs of security bodies and CPN (Maoist Centre) leaders were present at airport to bid farewell to PM Dahal. A contingent of Nepal Army had offered a gun salute to the PM before his departure. This is PM Dahal's second visit to India in his second premiership. He would return home on October 17.