The Indian and Indonesian navies carried out a military exercise – Passage Exercise (PASSEX) in the Arabian Sea on February 18. The aim behind the exercise was to enhance operational interoperability and overall cooperation.
Key Points
- From the Indian side, naval ship INS Talwar participated in the exercise while from the Indonesian side Navy’s multirole corvette KRI Bung Tomo took part.
- The maritime cooperation between India and Indonesia a seen a new momentum in the previous few years.
- Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Navy participated in various maritime exercises with a number of countries in the last few months like the US, Russia, Japan, and Australia.
Other Maritime Exercises
India hosted the Malabar exercise in November 2020. The exercise saw the participation of the navies of Japan, the US, and Australia. With the participation of Australia in the exercise, it became the first QUAD members exercise.
India, Singapore, Thailand also participated in a trilateral naval exercise SITMEX-2020 in November 2020.
Bilateral maritime exercise SIMBEX 2020 between the Indian Navy and Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) was also held in November 2020.
QUAD
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is a forum between four countries namely India, the US, Japan, and Australia. QUAD is maintained through information exchanges, summits, and military drills.