Defence is at the heart of the India-United relationship, so it is interesting that General Lloyd Austin, the US secretary for defense, was not among the officials present when Joe Biden met Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi for their first meeting since Biden became president in January.
The Indian delegation for the meeting included External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar; National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval; Foreign Secretary Ambassador Harsha Vardhan Shringla; Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu, India's ambassador to the US; Joint Secretary to the PM Rudra Gaurav Shresth (an Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1999 batch); and Modi's private secretary Vivek Kumar (an IFS officer of the 2004 batch).
Biden's delegation included Secretary of State Antony J Blinken; National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (at 44, likely the youngest person in the room; in contrast, India's NSA Doval is 76 years old); Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John F Kerry; Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the National Security Council Kurt Campbell; Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for South Asia in the NSC, Sumona Guha (at 49, one of the senior-most Indian Americans in the Biden administration with over 20 years experience in the US state department).
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All photographs: ANI on Twitter
