{"id":310067,"date":"2019-03-02T13:08:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T13:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=310067"},"modified":"2019-03-02T13:08:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T13:08:44","slug":"defence-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-meets-wing-commander-abhinandan-varthaman-in-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/defence-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-meets-wing-commander-abhinandan-varthaman-in-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-310068 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sitharaman-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/sitharaman-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/sitharaman-696x509.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/sitharaman-575x420.jpg 575w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/sitharaman.jpg 724w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in a hospital in Delhi on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot returned to India after being held captive in Pakistan for more than two days. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Defence Minister conveyed to the IAF pilot that the entire nation was proud of his courage and determination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cSmt @nsitharaman meets Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthman and his family at RR hospital, New Delhi to commend him on his valour, express the nation&#8217;s gratitude for his selfless service, and wish him a speedy recovery,\u201d Defence minister\u2019s office tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">During the meeting at a medical facility of the Indian Air Force, the wing commander explained details about his stay in Pakistan to the defence minister.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Abhinandan is currently undergoing thorough medical tests following his return from Pakistan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The IAF pilot was captured by Pakistani authorities on February 27 after his MiG 21 Bison went down during a dogfight with Pakistani jets. However, before his plane was hit, Varthaman shot down an F-16 of Pakistan Air Force.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in a hospital in Delhi on Saturday. The Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot returned to India after being held captive in Pakistan for more than two days. \u00a0 The Defence Minister conveyed to the IAF pilot that the entire nation was proud of his courage and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":310068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[11022,4753],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310070,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310067\/revisions\/310070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/310068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}