INDIAN DEFENCE UPDATE

Admiral Karambir Singh reviews operational preparedness of the Indian Navy’s warships deployed at sea ahead of upcoming Malabar maritime exercise. New Delhi: As tensions with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) continue, Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh Thursday reviewed the operational preparedness and combat-readiness of the Indian Navy’s principal combatants. Principal combatants refer to warships deployed at sea for operations. The review comes just days after India announced Australia’s participation in the upcoming Malabar maritime exercise next month as part of the Quad — a move China was not in favour of. During the review, Admiral Singh said the Navy would continue maintaining a high-tempo of operations in the coming months in the backdrop of the prevailing security situation. He also complimented the Carrier Battle Group and its combatants for accurate and effective weapon firings, which highlighted the Navy’s readiness to meet emergent contingencies. ‘Indian N

India has finally extended an invitation to Australia to join the Malabar Exercise 2020 which also includes the US and Japan. Australia will join the Malabar exercise after 13 years – Canberra last participated in the Naval drills in 2007. This year the exercise is expected to be held in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and is scheduled to be held in November. “As India seeks to increase cooperation with other countries in the maritime security domain and in the light of increased defence cooperation with Australia, Malabar 2020 will see the participation of the Australian Navy,” Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Monday. In the backdrop of Chinese aggression, New Delhi’s decision came after the Quad countries – the US, Japan, India and Australia met in Tokyo on October 6. While all the four members are facing hostilities from China, the officials of Japan, India and Australia refrained from using China’s name although the US’ State Secretary, Mike Pompeo, didn’t hold bac

India’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1) Vikrant is going for Basin Trials this month, with reports stating that the sea trials will follow in December. The 40,000-tonne warship will be tested for propulsion, transmission and shafting systems during the trials, which were earlier scheduled for September but were delayed due to the pandemic. It will now take a year more before the mega-ship is commissioned into the Indian Navy, after which the flight trials will make it ready for battle. The delay in the induction of the carrier now seems to extend until early 2022 – something the country can hardly afford amidst the current stand-off with China. IAC-1 is expected to be equipped with a short take-off barrier arrested design (STOBAR), similar to India’s already operational INS Vikramaditya, but will field a slightly smaller air wing in terms of numbers. The Indian Navy has been aggressively pushing for a third aircraft carrier for a long time, especially after Chief of Defence S