New Delhi, February 1
A move aimed at securing the coast and ensuring that incidents like Mumbai terror attacks when foreign militants entered via sea route didn’t happen again, India would be hosting the largest four-day naval war game, ‘Milan-2010’, involving 12 nations in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands from February 4. The event will be held close to the world’s busiest trade route in the straits of Mallaca.
Terror threat to coastal areas apart from anti-piracy and poaching operations would be debated during the event, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Foreign Cooperation and Intelligence) Rear Admiral Sudharshan Shrikhande told reporters here.
There would be a discussion on maritime terror and the means to counter attacks like what happened in Mumbai. He said Indian Navy was already coordinating with Indonesia and Thailand for a structured joint patrol along each other's maritime borders for about two or three times a year.
Among other issues to be discussed would be illegal entry of foreign ships into the waters of the respective countries, just as India had experienced when a North Korean vessel anchored off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands last year and had to be apprehended.
Naval ships from Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, with representatives from the navies of Brunei, Phillipines, Vietnam and New Zealand would join the exercise and also a seminar on “Navies in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief”. It will be inaugurated by Andaman and Nicobar Lieutenant Governor Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (retd).
Separately, he said the event
would be followed by the annual bilateral ‘Malabar’ exercise in the Arabian Sea in April-May this year involving India and USA. For this, the US is likely to bring one of its nuclear-powered submarines. India does
not own one yet.
Sources in the Navy said the Russian nuclear-powered submarine, K-152 Nerpa, will be in India on a 10-year lease by June this year.
The Akula-II class submarine, which India has sought for long, was inducted into the Russian navy in December last. “The Nerpa is expected to join the Indian Navy by June.”
An indigenously developed nuclear-powered vessel, the INS Arihant, was launched in July last. It is at present under construction in Visakhapatnam and is expected to join the fleet in about two years.
