India-Philippine Maritime Exercise | 24 Aug 2021
Why in News
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.
Key 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.