Designed and built by state-run Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata, INS Koswari is a highly manoeuvrable craft and ideally suited for deployment along the coast, a defence release said.
The 320-tonne ship named after Bangaram islands in Lakshadweep is 45 metres long and capable of doing speeds over 20 knots thus facilitating extensive surveillance in and around the islands.
This is the third indigenously built extra fast attack craft, named INFAC T-83.
INS Tihayu, specifically built for meeting needs of extended coastal and offshore surveillance and patrol, has a length of 49.9 metres and maximum breadth of 7.5 meters.
A Chinese-made fast attack craft armed with missiles was inducted into the Pakistan navy on Thursday, with Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman Gen Khalid Wynne saying the vessel's firepower would help strengthen the defence of the country's territorial waters.
At least 10 Sri Lankan Naval officials went missing after a powerful mid-sea blast destroyed and sunk a fast attack craft they were sailing at Nayaru in the seas off Mullaitivu, sources said. "One of our Fast Attack Craft (FAC) has got caught in a suspected sea-mine explosion around 0230 hrs in the Nayaru seas. Ten sailors aboard are missing while another six have already been rescued," Navy Spokesman, Commander DKP Dassanayake said.
The Indian Naval Fast Attack Craft (INFAC T-82) can be used in counter insurgency, anti-smuggling, search and rescue operations too.
The exercise was carried out in the Indian Ocean about 30 kilometres off the coast of Colombo.
The Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday claimed that it has killed at least 40 Tamil Tiger rebels when it confronted a flotilla of Sea Tiger boats in the seas off Vettilaikerni in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
Lieutenant Commander Prerana Pravin Deosthalee will lead an all-male crew. She is currently the first lieutenant of INS Chennai, the missile destroyer that rescued a foreign merchant ship hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia last week.
There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE in this regard.
Rediff.com beings you glimpses of Navy Week celebrations in Mumbai.
Saying it was not a worry, the Indian Navy said they were monitoring all such activities.
This is the first time that 'Exercise IBSAMAR' is being conducted in Indian waters and it will conclude on February 29. All previous editions were held off South Africa, Navy said in a release.
In the third such attack in as many days, six fishermen, who ventured into the sea from here, got injured when they were attacked allegedly by Sri Lankan naval men off Kodiakarai coast, fisheries department officials said on Saturday. The fishermen of Kilinjalmedu fishing hamlet were fishing in Indian waters a few knots South East off Kodiakarai last night when the Lankan Navy personnel arrived there on a fast craft and allegedly attacked them with iron rods.
An India-built naval patrol vessel for Mauritius that will help in better policing its vast exclusive economic zone was commissioned today by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who said it will make the Indian Ocean "more safer and secure".
Has the army confronted China, equipping itself with emergency purchases that have been largely paid for by pensioners, asks Ajai Shukla.
'There will be much for President Trump and Prime Minister Modi to discuss including growing Chinese military cooperation with Pakistan, which heralds a new attempt by China and Pakistan to neutralise India's influence in its Indian Ocean neighbourhood,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy.
Since 55 per cent of Indian trade passes through the South China Sea, and with over $5 billion investments in the energy sector in Vietnam, it is imperative India actively pursues its national interests in the region, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
Building relations in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi has gifted naval vessels to Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, even as China eyes the same locales.
At war, the Jalashwa can carry and launch a full infantry battalion in a single wave. At peace, the Jalashwa can evacuate 1,000 people in a single trip. Ajai Shukla explains why the Indian Navy's new tender for more ships like the Jalashwa must be treated with special urgency.
When a Chinese warship entered Japanese waters, the Indian commander called on China to maintain discipline at sea. Dr Rajaram Panda explains the significance of the Malabar exercises between India, Japan and the US.
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