new delhi the traditional at home function hosted by the president got a newage touch with einvitations sent out to 65 of the guests around 10 teams screening the invitations for bar codes manned various entrances as over 1000 guests including cabinet ministers diplomats politicians and cultural luminaries streamed in during the function president pranab mukherjee met dignitaries in the vvip enclosure where he was greeted by vicepresident hamid ansari prime minister manmohan singh lok sabha speaker meira kumar upa chairperson sonia gandhi chief justice of india p sathasivam leaders of opposition sushma swaraj and arun jaitley and senior bjp leader l k advani immediately after this mukherjee met cabinet ministers and diplomats in the sprawling mughal gardens and then walked past the barricade and mixed with nonvips who greeted him he then settled in the vvip enclosure naval chief admiral d k joshi was absent following the submarine tragedy in mumbai the other two services chiefs general bikram singh and air chief marshal n a k browne were seen mixing with the crowd earlier in the day the president interacted with differentlyabled children on the occasion of the 67th independence day i would like rashtrapati bhavan to be a model community in terms of caring for children and adults with special needs and thereby setting an example to the rest of the country he said children with special needs are as good as any other provided we give them support and opportunities he said and asserted that these children needed to be treated with sensitivity and empathy as they were fully capable of proving their competence