INDIA-PHILIPPINE MARITIME EXERCISE

• Recently, the Indian Navy carried out a Maritime Partnership Exercise with the Philippine Navy in the West Philippine Sea.
• Earlier Indo-UK Naval Exercise, ‘Konkan 2021 was held in the English Channel.

Important points:

• It will strengthen bilateral collaboration in the maritime domain towards a collective aim of ensuring a stable, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific
• This is in a series of exercises that India is conducting with littoral nations that share their maritime boundaries with China as part of its deployment.
• Indian naval ships INS Ranvijay and INS Kora are currently deployed to the Western Pacific with an aim to strengthen maritime security collaboration with partner nations.
• The Quad countries – India, the US, Australia and Japan – will conduct the next edition of the Malabar naval exercise off the coast of Guam in the face of China’s growing military muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific.
• China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea (arm of the Western Pacific Ocean) a huge source of hydrocarbons. However, several ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei, have counterclaims.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT