SIMBEX is a bilateral maritime exercise conducted between the Navies of India and Singapore. This series of exercises between the Indian Navy and the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) have been conducted annually since 1994, to enhance mutual interoperability.
SIMBEX 2020
- The 27th edition of the exercise, SIMBEX-20 is being hosted by the Indian Navy from November 23 to 25, in the Andaman Sea.
- This year, the SIMBEX is being conducted as a ‘Non-contact, at sea only’ exercise due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Indian Navy ships including destroyer ‘Rana’ with integral Chetak helicopter, ‘Kamorta and Karmuk’, the indigenously built corvettes, ‘Sindhuraj’ submarine and ‘P8I’ aircraft will participate in the exercise.
- Formidable-class frigates Intrepid and Steadfast with S70B helicopter and Endurance-class landing ship tank Endeavour will participate in SIMBEX 2020 from the Singapore Navy (RSN).
Bold Kurukshetra
Bold Kurukshetra is a joint military exercise between Singapore and India. The previous edition of this exercise was held in 2019. It was the 12th edition of the military exercise between both the countries which concluded at Uttar Pradesh’s Babina Military Station. During the 4-Day exercise, both the armies learnt about the best practices of combat being used in both the countries. The 11th edition of ‘Bold Kurukshetra” was conducted in 2017.
SITMEX
SITMEX is a trilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy, Royal Thai Navy (RTN), and Royal Singapore Navy. Recently, the 2nd edition of SITMEX was held between the navies of all three countries from November 21 to 22 in the Andaman Sea. The first edition of SITMEX was hosted by India in 2019 at Port Blair.
India-Singapore Cooperation
In 2018, India and Singapore signed a bilateral agreement for Navy Cooperation. Under the agreement, Singapore allowed the Indian Navy ships to access Singapore’s Changi Naval Base and provided them logistic support along with refueling.