PANAJI
India's Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar on Monday focused on non-traditional military threats like piracy, terrorism, illegal (unreported) fishing and their impact on maritime security as the two-day Goa Maritime Conclave got underway in Vasco.
The theme for this year’s edition of GMC is “Maritime Security and Emerging Non-Traditional Threats: A case for proactive role for IOR Navies”, which has been derived keeping in mind the necessity of ‘winning everyday peace’ in the maritime domain.
Kumar at the opening ceremony also expressed concern over the fast expansion of conventional navies in the Pacific region even as he stressed that non-traditional threats such as piracy, armed robberies, terrorism, narcotics and arms smuggling, human trafficking have an impact on maritime security as well as economic well-being of the country.
The conclave has attracted participation of representatives of 12 navies from the Indian Ocean region comprising Bangladesh, Comoros, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Myanmar, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Defence Secretary also highlighted India’s engagement and continued efforts towards reaching out to the nations in the region bilaterally and under the framework of IONS, IORA, BIMSTEC, Colombo Security Conclave and other structures.
He highlighted the Indian initiative of setting up the Information Fusion Centre for Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) towards fostering better understanding of the maritime domain and sought further support and participation from maritime countries of the IOR.
Kumar also lauded the Indian Navy for their contribution in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that it only remained on high vigilance duty safeguarding marine borders but went an extra mile to provide assistance to a large number of IOR littoral nations.
Meanwhile also at the conclave, Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh indicated a joint effort by Sri Lanka, Maldives and India to deal with the narco-trade allegedly promoted by ISIS and the Taliban.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Singh said the ISIS and Taliban were using the narco trade to generate funds for their terror activities.
"This drug trade moves from the Makran coast, heads to the east coast of Africa, then moves east through all the Island territories which are basically tourism oriented economies, comes to Sri Lanka, to India and of course goes out to the world. We are, for example Maldives, Sri Lanka and us, going to have focussed operations where we will deal with these as soon as the intelligence comes," Singh said, adding that maritime co-operation among the navies in the Indian Ocean was imperative.
The conclave aims to deliberate on the collaborative implementation of strategies in the IOR.
The three sessions at the conclave are focusing on leveraging collective maritime competencies to counter emerging non-traditional threats, strengthening regional cooperation for maritime law enforcement and imperatives for mitigating emerging non-traditional threats in areas beyond national jurisdictions.
The conclave is also hosting a "Make in India" exhibition where India's indigenous ship-building industry's prowess will be show-cased at the Mormugao Port Trust.
