Author: Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan,for The Diplomat
India has long used its navy to build ties with maritime nations in the Indo-Pacific, but this exercise steps up collaboration by tying up with ASEAN as a group.
India and ASEAN enhanced their maritime cooperation with the inaugural ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise (AIME) from May 2-8. India has long used its navy to build ties with maritime nations in the Indo-Pacific, but this exercise steps up collaboration by tying up with ASEAN as a group. ASEAN is an important strategic partner and India has for decades sought closer ties with the Southeast Asian region. Along with the Indian Navy, the navies of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam participated in the exercise.
According to an Indian Ministry of Defense press release, INS Satpura and Delhi took part in the AIME 2023. Both ships are part of the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet based in Visakhapatnam in southern India. The two ships are also indigenously built, INS Delhi being India’s first indigenously-built guided missile destroyer. INS Satpura is a 6,000-tonne, Shivalik-class stealth multirole frigate produced locally in India. It is considered to be an improved version of its predecessor Talwar-class frigates, equipped with better stealth and land attack features.
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Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
Dr. Rajeswari (Raji) Pillai Rajagopalan is the Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy & Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
