‘I’m very proud and thankful’

In an olive green pilot’s G-suit and a helmet, Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday soared high on a Sukhoi-30 MKI jet, the first Indian woman Defence Minister to go on a sortie on the all-weather, long-range fighter. The supersonic jet took off at 1 pm; after a 45-minute flight seated behind the pilot, Group Captain Sumit Garg, Sitharaman, 58, was back at Jodhpur Air Force station. Then President Pratibha Patil had also flown in the jet in 2009, as did APJ Abdul Kalam. In 2003, then Defence Minister George Fernandes had also taken a sortie aboard an SU-30 jet.

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