US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti was all praises for India National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and called him an 'international treasure'. "India's NSA has not only become a national treasure but an international treasure," Garcetti said at the United States-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) meet in Delhi. 

Garcetti also expressed admiration for the strong foundation between India and the US. "When I look at the foundation between the United States and India, it is so strong, it is so clear that Indians love Americans and Americans love Indians," he said, ANI reported.

Garcetti also praised India's advancements in digital payments. He said, “When I look at digital payments and financial technology that India has, we have rocked the world. A 'tea wala' in a village makes sure that she gets direct payment from the government on her phone, a 100 per cent of each one of those rupees." 

Talking about Doval's humble beginnings, Garcetti said, "Ajit Doval, a village boy from Uttarakhand, who now has not become only a national treasure but an international treasure, who has had the same vision to come together and say what can we do to change the course of this century, to quote NSA Jake Sullivan, to take us forward," 

US NSA Jake Sullivan is on a two-day trip in India. He met up with Doval and discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest. Sullivan had earlier said that US President Joe Biden is thrilled to see what is happening in India.

"As we look ahead to the state visit that PM Modi will be embarking upon in Washington next week, a number of the deliverables at that visit are not just bullet points on a page, they are fundamentally designed to remove obstacles in defence and high-tech trades and in taking away obstacles that have stood in the way of better collaboration among our scientists and researchers," Sullivan said. 

Sullivan's visit to India comes ahead of PM Modi's state visit to the US.