The Karachi-bound cargo vessel from Bangladesh carrying military hardware and explosives was kept cordoned off on Saturday at Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district with the captain disembarked and taken for questioning.
The Indian Navy and the Coast Guard have intensified their patrolling off Konkan coast following intelligence inputs that a suspicious ship was heading towards Goa.
The Centre has launched a Rs 350-crore project to set up radar sensors along the country's coastlines for surveillance to prevent terrorists from entering the nation to repeat the Mumbai-type attack.The radar sensors will be fitted on light houses at 46 locations, out of which 36 are on the mainland, six are in Lakshadweep Islands and four in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In the second major anti-piracy operation off Lakshadweep in 10 days, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard on Sunday apprehended 52 men including 28 suspected Somali pirates on board a ship after a brief gun-battle near the islands.
A second-generation immigrant born and raised in Roswell, Georgia, Narang had an early appreciation for military service due to her maternal grandfather's career in the Indian Army.
Colombo seems to be veering to the middle path between China and the US on global matters, but in regional matters of strategic security, it is increasingly identifying with India, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
Mumbai harbour, which has been affected by the recent oil spill, would be cleared for transportation by August 15, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
Defence Minister A K Antony said on Wednesday that Pakistan had 42 terror camps within its territory and that the neighbouring country was not taking effective steps to dismantle the terror outfits.
On Thursday morning, Coast Guard officials rescued as many as 30 crewmembers from the cargo vessel MV RAK, even as 3/4th of the 225 meter-long vessel had sunk into the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea. MV Rak was carrying 60,054 meteric tonne of coal. Toral Varia, brings you a blow-by-blow account of the rescue operation.
A North Korean ship, sailing to a Pakistani port, detained by the Coast Guard and the Navy after it was found anchored in Indian territorial waters off Vatakara coast without permission, is likely to be released as officials have not found any objectional cargo on board. The crew had cited internal leak in its tank as reason for anchoring in Indian waters.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday alleged that some former prime ministers had compromised the country's 'deep assets' on national security but refrained from naming them.
On Thursday morning, Coast Guard officials rescued as many as 30 crewmembers from MV RAK, even as 3/4th of the 225 meters long vessel sunk into the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea. MV Rak was carrying 60,054 meteric tonne of coal. Toral Varia, brings you a blow-by-blow account of the rescue operation.
The Navy and Coast Guard are rendering necessary assistance at the beaches to ensure that the celebrations pass off smoothly.
Naval officer-in-charge (West Bengal) Commodore Chandra Sekhar Azad has said that in the wake 26/11 Mumbai attack, India has taken several measures to strengthen coastal security across the country.
A search operation by the Navy and Coast Guard, for a suspicious boat that was apparently sighted by fishermen off Diu coast, did not yield results but surveillance has been enhanced along the west coast, a Navy official said on Tuesday.Fishermen in Diu informed security agencies on March 29 that they had seen a white boat with 'Al-Salam' written on it near the Diu coast. There were five persons on board and they were asking for directions.
The Navy chief also inaugurated the new Air Traffic Control building there.
The blame game among security and intelligence agencies over "actionable inputs" on the Mumbai terror strike continued with the Coast Guard on Thursday saying the "spies" had fallen for deliberately leaked "false inputs" by terrorists to hoodwink them.
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
The impact of the oil spill off Mumbai on the marine life can be ascertained only after six months to a year, said well-known marine biologist Deepak Apte.
The sprawling warship building facility caters to the combat vessel requirements of not only the Navy, but also the Coast Guard.
'An expanding army, rising salaries due to the 7th pay commission, and raised pensions due to OROP are consuming money at the cost of badly needed bulletproof jackets, rifles, artillery, submarines, warships and fighter aircraft,' notes Ajai Shukla.
After critically examining the ship 'M V Mu San' at Kakinada port, a team of scientists from Kalapakkam nuclear centre concluded that they found no 'CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear) traces' from the ship, which was detained by the Coast Guard off the Andaman waters in the first week of last month, official sources said in New Delhi.
'India is ahead only of Pakistan in the amount spent on each soldier a year.' 'The Indian military is a manpower-heavy throng that is poorly armed, equipped, and trained,' observes Ajai Shukla.
With the Mumbai terror attacks exposing lack of coordination among security agencies, India today completely overhauled its coastal security apparatus and handed over the overall responsibility of maritime security to the Navy.
With the November 26 terror strikes exposing the vulnerabilities of India's coastline, the country's armed forces are carrying out a week-long joint exercise off the Gujarat coast in which they would validate concepts to counter such threats in the future.
Meanwhile, in a statement, BP also said that the huge oil spill had so far cost the company $350 million.
More than 35 trawlers, carrying 200 fishermen from Goa, have been missing after gusty winds lashed the western coast on Wednesday. Fishermen at Malim jetty, located next to Panaji, said more than 28 trawlers have not returned since Tuesday night and they have lost contact with the base. Coast Guard officials, who have initiated search and rescue operations, said they have been flooded with complaints of missing people since Tuesday.
Two courts in Tamil Nadu have ordered the release of 61 Sri Lankan fishermen arrested between July and November last year.
Singh will succeed Admiral Sunil Lanba who retires on May 31.
A day after an FIR was filed against 35 persons on board US ship 'M V Seaman Guard Ohio,' detained for straying into Indian waters carrying weapons and ammunition, a multi-agency investigation, including officials from Research and Analysis Wing and Intelligence Bureau, has begun, sources said on Tuesday.
The ship carrying 14500 metric tonnes of iron ore had titled 50 degrees portside when it was six nautical miles from the port. The mishap was caused due to bad weather. The ship was sailing towards Zhavgiagang in China, informed Padam Shankar Jha, commandant of the coast guard ship Sankalp which finally saved the Chinese crew.
The bodies of 117 refugees have been recovered in the Mediterranean sea after a smuggling boat carrying mainly African migrants capsized off the coast of Libya
Maharashtra, which has witnessed a number of terror attacks with the latest being on Mumbai, has demanded constitution of a Central Coastal Security Authority.
In the wake of Mumbai attacks, when terrorists used sea route to strike the city, the government today took a host of measures, including acquisition of ships, installation of radars and setting up of new coast guard stations, to strengthen security of coastal areas.
As many as 48 persons were injured in these incidents and 25 still missing, while so far, 2,29,074 persons have been evacuated from the flood and rain-affected affected areas and moved to safer places, the government said in a statement in Mumbai.
Before he boarded the Amtrak train at New York's Penn station, the home minister learnt what novel security measures the New York Police Department, Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were taking to deal with possible terrorist attacks. In the wake of the terror attacks on Mumbai in November last year, the NYPD had incorporated changes to deal with similar attacks from the sea and on soft targets.
The new regional headquarter of the Indian Navy to be set up in Gujarat will help protect the porous 1660 km long coastline in Gujarat, said Gujarat leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil.
In a bid to prevent the use of the sea route by terrorists as in case of the Mumbai strikes, the Coast Guard has been asked to patrol the shoreline with locally hired fishing boats or trawlers. The task of guarding the Indian coastline has been entrusted to the Coast Guard. The responsibility of overall maritime security rests with the Indian Navy.Coastal states have also been told by the government to speed up implementation of the Coastal Security Scheme.
The storm is likely to impact Mumbai, Thane and other coastal districts of Maharashtra like Raigad and Palghar along with Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bhavnagar and Bharuch districts of Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Preparations for the impending cyclone were discussed at a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, a home ministry statement said.