Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) The Indian and Singaporean navies will undertake their annual fortnight-long SIMBEX exercise off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and in the Bay of Bengal from Saturday.
The April 3-16 SIMBEX (Singapore Indian Maritime Bilateral Exercise), the 17th in the series, will be conducted in two separate theatres: Initially in the Andaman Sea and then in the Bay of Bengal. The previous edition was conducted off Singapore in 2009.

“Over the years, the exercises have reflected the growth in strength, capability and mutual confidence of the two navies. As such, the exercises have graduated from purely training oriented ASW (anti-submarine warfare) exercises to complex exercises, involving multiple facets of operations at sea,” an Indian Navy officer said here.

“Our relations have scaled such a high level of understanding that we even practice weapon firing. In 2008, we had carried out missile firing tests, which seldom happens in international exercises,” the officer added.

The Indian Navy will be fielding the destroyer INS Ranvir, the landing ship tank INS Mahish, the patrol craft INS Batti Malv, the tanker INS Jyoti and a submarine from the Eastern Fleet for the exercise.

The Singapore Navy is participating with the frigate RSS Intrepid and the missile corvette and RSS Victory. The two ships will also make port calls at Port Blair and Visakhapatnam during the exercise.

The India-Singapore naval cooperation was formalized a decade-and-a-half ago when ships from the city-state began ASW training with the Indian Navy in 1994.

This is the second time this year when both navies are coming together for an exercise.

The Singapore Navy was part of four-day Exercise Milan war game hosted by India in February. Navies from Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam had also participated in the event, which was conducted as part of India’s ‘Look East’ policy.