Indra: India, Russia for first time conduct tri-services exercise

India and Russia for first time are going to conduct Indra tri-services exercise, involving their armies, navies and the air forces in October 2017 to further ramp up military ties.
It will be for the first time India will participate in a tri-services exercise with a foreign country with such large scale participation by Army, Navy and Air Force.

Key Facts

The 2017 Indra exercise will be held in Russia including in mountainous Vladivostok region. It will primarily focus on achieving coordination between forces of the two countries in a tri- services integrated theatre command scenario.
A total of 350 Indian Army personnel will participate at the mega exercise. The contingents by the Indian Navy and AirForce (IAF) will also be sizeable in numbers. Russian army, navy and air force also for time holding tri-services exercise with other country.

Comment

The exercise will take place in the midst of evolving unpredictable security situation in the region. It will be conducted at a time when India’s ties with China have nosedived over the border dispute issue and also at time when its ties with Pakistan have deteriorated over cross-border terrorism and number of other issues.

Background

India is significantly ramping up its defence capability and has lined up billions of dollars of procurement proposals as part of military modernisation. Russia has been a long-standing defence partner of India and both the countries are now eyeing to further deepen the ties. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia in June 2017, both countries had decided to “upgrade and intensify” defence cooperation through joint manufacture, co-production and co-development of key military hardware and equipment. A vision document, issued then also had mentioned that both the countries also decided to work towards a qualitatively higher level of military-to-military cooperation.

Month: Current Affairs - August, 2017