In a tribute, President Joe Biden called him a "born patriot", while Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar hailed him as a thought-provoking global strategist.
On Friday, the 'raksha mantri' boarded the USS Eisenhower to view flight operations while the ship was at sea.
They will serve as a rifleman, machine gunner and mortar Marine.
A high-ranking Pentagon official on apologised to the Afghan leadership for the burning of the Quran by United States military personnel and also discussed the reconciliation process in the war-torn country.
US President Barack Obama has appointed a woman for the second topmost post in the Department of Defence.
Members of his team and industry were right now in India, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter disclosed, 'looking at the potential co-production of fighter aircraft.'
Russia on Wednesday carried out intense rocket strikes targeting the Islamic State in Syria from warships in the Caspian Sea, 1500 km away.
Introduced by Republican Congressman Ted Poe and Democratic lawmaker Rick Nolan, the legislation calls for revoking MNNA status of Pakistan, which was granted to it in 2004 by the then president, George Bush, in an effort to get the country to help the US fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
'The days are gone when we only deal with India as the other side of the Pakistan coin or Pakistan as the other side of the India coin.'
The US has deployed its elite counter-terrorism unit Delta Force for covert operations in Iraq to capture or kill high-ranking Islamic State operatives and gather intelligence, according to a media report.
United States Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter, who played a critical role in boosting Indo-US defence ties, on Friday said that he will step down in December.
China should not feel cornered by a raft of geopolitical moves by the US and Japan against it by forging closer ties with India, Russia and others in the region and Beijing should focus on becoming a strong economic and military power, a state-run daily said on Thursday.
New Delhi remains a priggish suitor to Washington's overtures, but it has begun appreciating potential tech benefits to ties with the US.
'This is going to be an opportunity to hear from the prime minister of the new India and the progress made in the last two years of the growing cooperation between the US and India in several areas, including areas that would have seemed implausible a few years ago.' US Congressman Ed Royce, who led the campaign to have Prime Minister Modi address a joint session of Congress, speaks to Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
We bring you a collection of some of the best photographs taken this week by ace Reuters photographers.
'A lot of people,' says India's Ambassador to the US, 'are struggling how to define this relationship.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
Slated to be in India on December 8, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and Great Britain before returning to the US on December 16. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.
'The Modi government will do well to thrash out a national consensus before taking the leap and put itself in America's pouch,' says Rajeev Sharma.
Cyberspace is a battleground as important as the traditional domains of air, land, sea and space, says US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, who visits India next week.
'If you look at the relationship with Pakistan, or the relationship with China, both are today, more uncertain than they were when this government came into power.'
'Of all the areas that define the future for a strong US-India partnership, none is more important than our defence and security ties.'
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If we could break through this symbolic barrier of sanctions and a dysfunctional relationship, we could do anything.'
Some members of the Obama administration have worried that Pakistan's heightened anxieties about India might lead Islamabad to take reckless measures, so they have wanted New Delhi to pursue more diplomatic engagement with Islamabad.
'I could see it not having any impact whatsoever,' says Stephen P Cohen on Obama's India visit.
Deployment of THAAD in South Korea could unfold a new cataclysm in the Korean Peninsula with unwelcome prospects.
'The diplomat's arrest has led to a major diplomatic spat, the likes of which I have not seen in my nearly three decades of covering the US-India relationship, says Aziz Haniffa. 'The knee-jerk reaction by the powers-that-be in Delhi was myopic to say the least.'
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
'When it comes to India-Pakistan relations, seminal moments of progress invariably bring out saboteurs of peace -- whether we're talking about fresh provocations along the LoC, or even a terror attack in India.'
'Our approach to India is no different from the approach that we have made in India over the years, recognising its non-aligned status. That's their decision; we're not trying to change that. We have common interests, and we have actually built on those common interests... We think there's more potential to build on those common interests.' 'Security, stability, freedom of sea lanes, economic development, energy, all those are certainly in the interest of India and the region, as they are to the United States.' The transcript of US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel's interaction with reporters travelling with him hours before he landed in New Delhi on Friday on a three-day visit to India.
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