Information Fusion Center of Indian Navy | 17 Dec 2018

The Indian Navy will inaugurate the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

  • The Information Fusion Centre will serve countries that have White Shipping Information Exchange (White-shipping refers to commercial shipping information about the movement of cargo ships) agreements with India.
  • The IFC-IOR is established with the vision of strengthening maritime security in the region, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and acting as a maritime information hub for the region.
  • The IOR apart from being heavily militarized ocean also faces threats like maritime terrorism, piracy, arms-running, human trafficking.

Information Fusion Centre (IFC)

  • The IFC has been established at the Indian Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) in Gurugram, Haryana.
  • IFC is the single point center linking all the coastal radar chains to generate a seamless real-time picture of the nearly 7,500-km coastline.
  • All countries that have signed white shipping information exchange agreements with India can now position liaison officers at the IFC.
  • The IFC-IOR is a separate platform and all members of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium are expected to be part of it. The IONS, launched in 2008, seeks to increase maritime cooperation in IOR.

Significance

  • Information on commercial shipping will be exchanged with countries in the region to improve maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean.
  • It will strengthen the mutual collaboration and understanding of the threats prevalent in the region.

Trans-Regional Maritime Network (T-RMN)

  • Recently, India has also signed the Trans Regional Maritime Network (T-RMN) agreement.
  • The multilateral agreement comprises of 30 countries and is steered by Italy.
  • This will facilitate information exchange on the movement of commercial traffic on the high seas.
  • Under the T-RMN, information is available mainly through the Automatic Identification System (AIS), fitted on the merchant ships as mandated by the International Maritime Organisation.
  • The AIS is used to identify passenger and commercial ships in international waters. AIS comprises the name, number, position, course, speed, last port visited, destination etc.
  • Such multilateral agreements help Indian Navy monitor whole Indian Ocean. As due to the large traffic, the Indian Ocean cannot be entirely monitored by any one nation.

Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC)

  • The Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) is located in Gurugram.
  • It is the main center of the Indian Navy for coastal surveillance and monitoring.
  • IMAC is the nodal center of the National Command Control Communications and Intelligence Network (NC3I Network).
  • IMAC is a joint initiative of Indian Navy, Coast Guard and Bharat Electronics Ltd. and functions under the National Security Adviser (NSA).

National Command Control Communication and Intelligence Network (NC3IN)

  • The Indian Navy has established the NC3IN linking 51 stations, including 20 of the Navy and 31 of the Coast Guard, with a nodal Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC).
  • The NC3I links 20 naval and 31 Coast Guard monitoring stations to generate a seamless real-time picture of the nearly 7,500-km long coastline.