Dosti Trilateral Exercise: India, Maldives and Sri Lanka

• 25 Nov 2021

Why in News

The 15^th edition of the biennial trilateral coast guard exercise ‘Dosti’ involving India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka is underway in the Maldives, which will conclude today.

• The year 2021 marks 30 years since these exercises were first launched.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • The exercise was first initiated in 1991, between the Indian and Maldives Coast Guard. Sri Lanka joined the exercise for the first time in 2012.
  • The Exercises carried out over the past ten years have focused on exercises and drills on providing assistance in sea accidents, eliminating sea pollution, and the Coast Guard's procedure and conduct during situations such as oil spills.
  • Indian Coast Guard vessels Vajra and Apoorva have been deployed for the exercise (2021).
• Aim of the Exercise:
  
  • To further fortify the friendship, enhance mutual operational capability, and exercise interoperability and to build cooperation between the Coast Guards of Maldives, India and Sri Lanka.
• Recent Security Related Development:
  
  • In August this year (2021), India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives agreed to work on what are called the “four pillars” of security cooperation.
    
    • These involved the areas of marine security, human trafficking, counter-terrorism and cyber security.
  • Earlier, the three countries agreed to expand the scope of intelligence sharing.
• Exercise between India and Srilanka:
  
  • Exercise MITRA SHAKTI (Military Exercise)
  • SLINEX (Naval exercise)
• Exercise between India and Maldives:
  
  • Exercise Ekuverin (Military Exercise)

Source: IE