Official sources said Rumsfeld would arrive Dec 9 and leave the next day in the course of a trip to the region that is also expected to take him to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"It is not every day that a US defence secretary visits a country," a senior official told IANS, indicative of the importance New Delhi attached to the visit.

This will be the first high-level bilateral engagement between the two countries since the re-election of Bush for a second term.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who spoke to Bush to congratulate him on his re-election, had renewed the invitation to the president to visit India and Bush had said he was keen to undertake the visit.

The defence secretary's visit comes at a time when the two countries are negotiating the second phase of what is called the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP), an initiative aimed at cooperation in the sensitive space and nuclear fields, high technology trade and missile defence.

India expressed concern over the US decision, announced earlier this month, to sell sophisticated weapons to Pakistan, saying it would adversely affect the India-Pakistan peace process as well as growing India-US ties.

Press reports said the US intended to sell up to eight Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, anti-tank missiles and rapid-fire guns to Pakistan at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.

But Indian protests have been muted because the US has reportedly formally offered to sell the Patriot missile system to New Delhi to beef up its security against possible missile attacks.

This and other arms deals are expected to figure during Rumsfeld's talks with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian leaders.

Informed sources said the US had also offered to sell India P-3C Orion naval reconnaissance aircraft, an upgraded and more sophisticated version of what Pakistan is being sold.

Sources said the US had also offered India Perry Class frigates and Sea Hawk helicopters, besides special chemical and biological protection equipment.

They said Washington had apparently succeeded in removing Indian reservations about pitching for US military hardware, stemming from a problem the Indian
Navy faced two years ago in getting parts for its Sea King helicopters from Britain.

Britain would not sell the parts because it required US clearance as the Sea Kings had US parts. That problem has since been sorted out.

New Delhi traditionally looked at the erstwhile Soviet Union for its defence requirements and the close military cooperation has continued with Russia since the end of the Cold War.

But of late, it has been looking at new sources to meet its defence needs with Israel, South Africa and now the US emerging as new suppliers.

During a meeting in Washington in March with India's army chief, Gen. N.C. Vij, Rumsfeld had expressed the hope that US-India cooperation in defence would be strengthened in the coming days.

Rumsfeld, who "dropped by" during a meeting between Vij and Vice Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, expressed "great satisfaction" at the progress in the military-to-military cooperation between the two countries, and hoped that the cooperation in the anti-terror campaign would be further strengthened.

--Indo-Asian News Service