New Delhi, Mar 5: Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lamba on Monday said that India is keeping a close watch on the movements of Chinese vessels in the Indian Ocean. In an interview to Zee media group, Lamba said that the navy is fully capable of keeping of ensuring its maritime security. He added that China has deployed several vessels and submarines in Indian Oceans since 2008 but India is ready for any challenge.
Here are the excerpts of the interview
On Indian ocean
Indian Ocean is the only ocean named after a country. India has a great maritime heritage. It was the first country 5000 years ago to have built a dock in Lothal. The first navigation charts were printed in India. We have a great maritime tradition. Chinese ships are in the Indian ocean since 2008, they have a lot of ships and submarines deployed in Indian ocean. We keep a close eye and monitor what all that is happening. Last year onwards we started with new deployment pattern which is a mission-based deployment. We are aware of what all is happening and this is done on a continuous basis. We monitor all movements and Indian Navy is fully capable of ensuring its maritime security.
On Act East Policy Cooperation
We have been cooperating with all eastern neighbours after the act east policy initiated in 2014. We along with Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia, conduct coordinated patrol on our maritime borders. We have regular staff talks on a navy to navy level. We are helping them with training large number of their personnel. There are couple of countries whom we have helped in enhancing capability and capacity. We have supplied them the equipments, set up facility in their country, and will continue doing it as we work with them shoulder to shoulder. We are always the first responders when it comes to delivering humanitarian aids in the event of natural calamity in the Indian ocean and neighbouring regions. The Indian ocean naval symposium has a sub-group called hard which is headed by the Indian navy.
On Malabar exercise
Malabar exercise started in 1993 and it was a bilateral exercise between US Navy and Indian Navy. Earlier, normally 2 ships each participated from both ends. Over the years, from 1993 till now, the scope and size of the exercise has gone up. Japan has become the permanent member of Malabar exercise and in the last exercise, we had our aircraft carrier ‘Vikramaditya’ and an aircraft carrier from u.s. Navy and helicopter destroyer from the Japanese defence maritime forces also participated. So it has gone up in scale, size and duration. We learn from each other the best practices, different procedures used, during the exercise.
We also deal with the inter-operatability issue when we have to operate with each other in the sea. We are gaining from each other’s expertise and knowledge. Japan maritime self defence forces and Indian navy are similar in strength and assets, so we learn together. No country should have a problem participating in our exercises as they are not targetted at anybody. They are meant to learn and gain from each ohter’s expertise. We are like-minded democratic countries and we all uphold international good order and rule-based system in the world.
Source : india
