Esper also highlighted the 'increased' military cooperation with India and called it as 'one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century'.
The Centre had issued the warnings across the Indian Ocean after a massive earthquake, measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale, off the Indonesian coast.
The high-voltage Malabar exercise featuring the navies of all four Quad countries -- India, the US, Australia and Japan -- began on Thursday off the coast of Guam against the backdrop of a resolve by the four nations to solidify cooperation for a free and open Indo-Pacific in view of China's rouge behaviour in the region.
The next edition of the high-voltage Malabar naval exercise begins from August 26 to 29 off the coast of Guam amid mounting global concerns over China's growing military muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific region.
The PM held bilateral meetings with three ASEAN leaders, including his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and discussed key bilateral and regional issues.
The US remained "watchful" over developments along India's frontier with China as it cannot take its eyes off the regional security issues, a senior American official said on Wednesday against the backdrop of the over 29-month border standoff in eastern Ladakh that has significantly frayed ties between the two neighbours.
The Indian Space Research Organisation said it successfully carried out an "extremely challenging" controlled re-entry experiment of the decommissioned orbiting Megha-Tropiques-1 (MT-1) satellite.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi spoke over phone on Monday during which they took stock of India-UK trade and defence talks, opening up of international travel between the two countries and climate action targets in the lead up to the COP26 summit, Downing Street said.
India must break out of this strategic triangulation between China and Pakistan. We need to settle our issues with one of the two, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Although the Malabar is a routine exercise which has been carried out for several years now, security experts attach a lot of traction to it in view of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, observes Rup Narayan Das.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Investment is the only way India can counter the Chinese influence in the region.' 'With more and more investments, you will have more and more stake; the strategic importance of Sri Lanka can be fulfilled with investments.' 'Investments should come because the void which is created by investments is always going to be filled by Chinese companies.'
"We often thought of terrorism as a peripheral problem for this region. The barbaric terrorist strikes in Paris, Ankara, Beirut, Mali and on the Russian aircraft is a stark reminder that its shadow stretches across our societies and our world, both in recruitment and choice of targets," Modi said in his remarks at the East Asia Summit.
'An authoritative source in the government tells me that India has emerged as the net security provider of the Maldives,' says Rajeev Sharma.
"Welcome to India, President @EmmanuelMacron! Your visit will add great strength to the strategic partnership between India and France. I look forward to our talks tomorrow," Modi tweeted after receiving Macron at the airport.
China's desire to have India as part of its ambitious Maritime Silk Route makes strategic sense for both nations. However, it would involve substantive assurances from Beijing, says Dr Rahul Mishra
Exercise Tiger Triumph -- a full-scale, tri-service beach landing operation -- is a capability India is seeking to build.
The aircraft carrier is China first domestically-built ship. Shandong is bigger than China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning and could house 36 fighter jets.
China is scouring its territory in Tibet and Xinjiang for the Malaysian jetliner missing for 11 days, a senior diplomat said as international efforts to locate the plane failed to achieve any breakthrough.
It will be for the first time since Independence that India and Pakistan will both be part of a military exercise.
The team led by researchers from the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Manoa in the US discovered that these electrons in Earth's plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes -- breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals -- on the Moon's surface.
'The potential of one such LAC engagement going out of control and leading to heavy casualties cannot be ruled out,' warns Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys a close relationship with Shinzo Abe. For Abe, "a strong India is in the best interest of Japan, and a strong Japan is in the best interest of India."
Scientists said they have new evidence of increasing strain where two tectonic plates underlie the world's largest river delta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned India's first indigenously designed and built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant in Kochi on Friday, that put India into a select league of countries with domestic capability to build such large war ships.
PM Modi addressed the Sri Lanka Parliament on Friday.
Aircraft carriers of India, the United States, Japan and Australia are set to take part in the second phase of Exercise Malabar that is scheduled to take place from November 17 to 20 in the Indian Ocean region, the Navy said on Monday.
An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit the Andaman Sea on Thursday but the Met department ruled out tsunami.
The French Air and Space Force is carrying out a major long-range mission in the Indo-Pacific, code-named Pegase 22, from August 10 to September 18.
'Because of global warming, the chances of heatwaves like this are much higher.'
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'The Weather Channel argues that India faces the gravest challenge: Climate change-induced health vulnerability.' 'This is an issue often neglected, alerts Claude Arpi: "Prolonged summers, unpredictable rains, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels are the harsh realities of climate change in the country. These factors increase the frequency and severity of illnesses, pushing people into poverty, and forcing migration".'
Fourteen years after the Sri Lankan government announced his death, a veteran Tamil nationalist leader claimed in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, on Monday that Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka, is doing well and said a conducive atmosphere prevails for him to appear now.
The meeting is taking place under the shadow of a fierce border row between India and China, both members of the influential bloc.
Gen Rawat said the world looks at India as a country that can balance the rise of China in the region as it was showing its 'assertiveness'.
The Chinese coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific, it said.
Speaking at a joint press event with Macron, Modi, who is in Paris on a two-day official visit, said a roadmap to strengthen India-France strategic ties over the next 25 years was being prepared with bold and ambitious goals on the anvil.
The GSAT-31 is a 'high power' communication satellite going to serve and replace some of the satellites that are going to expire soon.
The United States, he said, 'desires a new age of ambition' in its relationship with India. Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy.
