'It gave her an opportunity to preview her trip to India and also get some feedback from these senior congressional leaders on our views on India and on the trip.'

Later Clinton met a number of senior foreign policy experts from various think tanks and related academic institutions 'for an exchange of views on events going on,' Kelly said without naming the experts.

Asked if she raised issues like nuclear sales and possible defence contracts with New Delhi, he said: 'Well, I think it was a pretty broad discussion, but I'm not prepared to talk about details besides previewing her trip and talking about a number of issues on the bilateral agenda.'

Kelly said he was unaware of what papers still remained to be signed to implement the India-US civil nuclear deal or whether the issue would come up during Clinton's visit.

'I mean, we have a very broad agenda with India,' he said. 'Her trip is in about 11 days or so. I'm just not going to predict what's going to come up during that trip.'

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)