Delhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman receives US Defence Secretary James Mattis in New Delhi.


Ajai Shukla in his column for Rediff.com, writes, "When United States Defence Secretary Jim Mattis meets his Indian counterpart, Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on Tuesday, it will be a first handshake between an unusually powerful American incumbent and a greenhorn Indian one. General Mattis is a vastly experienced combat soldier who has commanded an infantry battalion in Iraq in 1991, an expeditionary brigade in Afghanistan after 9/11, a US Marine division in Iraq in 2003 and eventually the US Central Command, which covers the world's most dangerous hotspots from Pakistan to West Asia and North Africa."

Read more on the column here.