  The effective chiral model is extended by introducing the contributions from
the cross-couplings between isovector and isoscalar mesons. These
cross-couplings are found to be instrumental in improving the density content
of the nuclear symmetry energy. The nuclear symmetry energy as well as its
slope and curvature parameters at the saturation density are in harmony with
those deduced from a diverse set of experimental data. The equation of state
for pure neutron matter at sub-saturation densities is also in accordance with
the ones obtained from different microscopic models. The maximum mass of
neutron star is consistent with the measurement and the radius at the canonical
mass of the neutron star is within the empirical bounds.
