Spread out over 1000 acres, INS Vajrakosh, Indian Navy's latest establishment which was commissioned by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday, would be the home base for a bulk of the Indian Navy's strength on the western coast.
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
'We failed as a country because those who should have been there to say goodbye did not show up.'
The Indian Navy, which regards itself as the 'net security provider' in the Indian Ocean Region, has also stepped up to the plate, with a warship stationed at all times off the Gulf of Aden for counter-piracy tasks. 91 Indian warships have been deployed in the region since 2008, patrolling high risk areas where piracy was rampant.
The Indian Navy's flagship carrier, the INS Viraat will be decommissioned on March 6 after serving the nation for 30 glorious years.
India's decision to skip the meeting came after a year of bilateral discord over China's stubborn opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and a UN ban against Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar.
Lt Gen Baggavalli Somashekar Raju will take over as the next vice chief of the Army Staff on May 1, the defence ministry said on Friday.
India also went on an overdrive in expanding its military engagement with like-minded countries in its neighbourhood and beyond in the face of China's relentless attempts to become a regional hegemon and establish its primacy in South Asia.
India's voting pattern in the United Nations with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict is lately marked by a calibrated distancing from Israel, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In the lead up to this week Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, for which United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, will be coming to Delhi, the Indo-US defence engagement is even more intense than usual.
The cyclone would bring light to moderate rains at most places and 'heavy to very heavy downpour' at some places on November 6.
There is no word yet on the progress of rescue operations for the accommodation barge SS-3 and the Sagar Bhushan oil rig.
In wake of the blasts on the INS Sindhurakshak, the Navy has ordered extensive checks on weapon-related safety systems on all its submarines, Defence Minister A K Antony told Lok Sabha.
Preliminary investigations have indicated that blasts on submarine INS Sindhurakshak were caused by "possible ignition" of armament, Defence Minister A K Antony said.
Kalvari underwent around 120 days of extensive sea trials and tests for various equipment and is expected to bolster India's maritime prowess.
On Friday, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said that 68 Chinese military planes and 13 warships crossed over the median line to participate in drills.
The creation of a CDS has got the head right. Issues that were not talked about for years are now being discussed, points out Ajai Shukla.
There are times in each nation's life when the gods shower their blessings on it. The right leaders are in place and they make the right decisions. Everything seems to click and good luck favours its people. Such times came to this country 50 years ago, recalls Admiral J G Nadkarni (retd).
It is learnt that Russia is not sending any military platform to exercise and there is no clarity yet on whether it will depute any delegation for the event.
At any time, there is a need to operationally deploy two aircraft carriers in the vast Indian Ocean, asserts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
India's historical focus on its continental borders has overshadowed its maritime ambitions, but that is changing quickly, notes Ajai Shukla.
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 Chinese have just one commander for all the forces confronting India. Commanders of all these forces answer to one man, and one headquarter. India, on the other hand, offers a diversity of options that is a military embarrassment in the 21st century. In Arunachal and Sikkim-Bhutan, the Eastern Army Commander is in charge. In the Uttarakhand (central) sector, it will be the Central Army Commander. The Himachal-Tibet border is the domain of the Western Army Commander. And all of Kashmir and Ladakh further on, the Northern Army's. Effectively, an array of at least eight 'three-star' commanders will be arrayed against one Chinese, says Shekhar Gupta.
'At 1.58% of GDP, the defence budget is one of the lowest since the Chinese aggression of 1962.' 'The government of the day has lost sight of the fact that defence of the country is as important as its growth,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
India cannot choose its geography and devise regional strategies to dovetail into the Western Indian Ocean hypothesis conceived in the Pentagon, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
An Indian Navy submarine caught fire after an explosion and sank in Mumbai late on Tuesday night, with 18 personnel on board, including three officers, feared dead.
India and the United States have started discussions to jointly develop a next-generation aircraft carrier to bolster the Indian Navy's blue-water capabilities, a top Pentagon official has said.
With 40 officers and 260 men, INS Kochi sailed into the eye of a cyclonic storm and rescued 125 men who had jumped into the sea from a sinking barge. It was one of the Indian Navy's greatest rescue operations.
The US has deployed its naval carrier strike group, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, as well as a fleet of F-18 fighter jets and E-2C Hawkeye all-weather aircraft for the exercise, officials said. The Indian assets at the exercise included Jaguar and Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jets, IL-78 air-to-air refuelling tanker aircraft, Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and warships Kochi and Teg. The Indian Navy has also deployed a fleet of P8I maritime surveillance aircraft and MiG 29K jets, apart from other platforms.
The Chinese military, on the last day of its largest-ever military exercises to vent out its anger over United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, carried out island saturation attack drills in the Taiwan Straits, amid global concerns of a full-scale attack to annex the breakaway island which Beijing claims is part of its territory.
The retreating Pakistani troops were heading towards Dacca and they had to be stopped at all costs. The Eastern Army Commander, in his orders to General Sagat Singh, had reiterated that he did not want the troops of 4 Corps to cross the Meghna river. But General Sagat had other plans to threaten Dacca and ensure that the pressure would make the Pakistani commanders capitulate. This is where the IAF helicopters came in.
Snubbed by his party leader Rahul Gandhi and panned by the Bharatiya Janata Party for questioning surgical strikes, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh swung into damage control mode on Tuesday and said his questions were to the government and not the armed forces.
'Since each chief single-mindedly pursues his service's interests in the competition for turf and in core matters such as budget share. The CDS, therefore, must act as an "honest broker" whose decisions serve the broader national purpose, rather than narrow service interests,' says Ajai Shukla.
Chushul and Depsang are not vital in this game of Chinese checkers, the Indian Ocean Region is. Keeping our maritime prowess restricted has to be a key Chinese strategic interest and it would appear that the LAC affair has helped China achieve its aim, points out Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
If the initial analysis of this YJ-21 is correct, then China becomes the first country in the world to operationally field such a missile from a naval vessel.
'As Indians, we should be claiming and celebrating 'Bhartiyata' rather than seeking commitment to beliefs which are divisive and exclusionary.'
The IAF commanders held detailed deliberations on the border row with China in eastern Ladakh, key short-term and long-term security challenges facing the nation and on the complex geo-political power play in India's neighbourhood.
'You have been surrounded from all directions, if you want the safety of your troops and your personal safety, we will give you eight hours to make up your mind to surrender.'
'... To ensure that the vast Indian Ocean Region remain peaceful.'
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