Milan 2020: Indian Navy to host multi-nation military drill

On January 10, 2020, Indian Navy will be hosting military drill called ‘Milan 2020’ at Visakhapatnam, The City of Destiny. MILAN stands for ‘Multilateral Naval Exercise’. The Event will witness the participation of several countries. Apart from a large number of ships, senior dignitaries are also expected to take part in various functions and visit naval facilities during MILAN 2020. The theme of the exercise is

Theme: Synergy Across the Seas

About ‘Milan 2020’

The MILAN series of biennial exercises commenced in 1995. It was conducted at Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) until last year, for the first time on mainland at Eastern Naval command(ENC).

Significance

Through the exercise GoI will pursue cooperation initiatives with friendly foreign countries, including in Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The areas of cooperation include capacity building, training, operational exercise marine domain awareness, hydrography, technical assistance.

Invited Countries

41 nations from South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe that share defence cooperation with India have been invited for the drill. These include- Indonesia, Maldives, Australia, Somalia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, Qatar, Thailand, Malaysia, , Egypt, France, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, New Zealand, USA, Israel, Tanzania, Comoros, Seychelles Brunei, Philippines, Japan, UK, Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Mauritius, Cambodia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Kuwait, Iran, Russia, Djibouti, Bahrain, UAE, Eritrea and Bangladesh.

Of these, 30 have confirmed their participation.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2020