Indian Navy conducts large scale fleet exercise on eastern seaboard

Indian Navy has conducted a large scale Fleet exercise on the eastern seaboard to maintain high levels of combat readiness and counter emerging threats.
The exercises were conducted across a vast geographical area on the eastern seaboard extending from Northern Bay of Bengal to Andaman Sea.
Key facts

• In this large scale naval exercise as many as 24 ships, over 10 aircraft and 2 submarines participated.
• The exercise fleet included the nuclear submarine Chakra as well as units from India’s strategic Andaman and Nicobar Command.
• The P8I Long Range Maritime reconnaissance aircraft and Hawk Fighter aircraft were also integrated into the exercise.
• A ship with the Kamov 31 Air Early Warning helicopter from the Western Naval Command was also deployed for the exercise.
• Two weeks exercise mainly was to hone war fighting skills and concepts of Indian Navy. It also dove-tailed various aspects of maritime warfare.
• A wide range of weapons were fired from various platforms including Surface to Surface missiles (SSMs), Surface to Air missiles (SAMs) and Land Attack Missiles (LAMs).

Chinese activities in IOR
The large scale naval Fleet exercise comes amid of increasing Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). In the past few years, there have been increased sightings of Chinese submarines in the IOR region including a nuclear attack boat.
Indian security establishment have been sceptically about the Chinese presence in IOR, though they are claiming that they have deployed submarines and attack boats as part of their anti-piracy task force.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2015