India Navy chief arrives in Dhaka to participate in IONS

Indian Navy chief Admiral R K Dhowan today arrived here on a five-day visit to attend the 5th Edition of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium during which he will present a guideline document on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The aim of the document is to provide guidelines for developing a speedy, responsive, coordinated and effective humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) mechanism for Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) members, as and when required.
During the visit, he will also be calling on political and military counterparts from Bangladesh and IONS members/observers to further cement bilateral relations.
IONS was launched in February 2008 to captilise upon regional strengths of Indian Ocean Region (IOR) littorals and was 21st century's first significant international maritime- security initiative.

As many as 35 littoral states in the IOR have been grouped into four sub-regions (South Asian, West Asian, East African and South East Asian littorals including Australia).
IONS seeks to provide a regional forum through which the Chiefs-of-Navy (or equivalent maritime agency) of all the littoral states of the IOR periodically meet to constructively engage each other through the creation and promotion of regionally relevant mechanisms, events, and activities.

Its Chairmanship is rotated sequentially through each of the four sub-regions. This is to ensure that challenges of each region receive due emphasis.
The IONS Chair was held by India from 2008 to 2010, UAE from 2010 to 2012 and South Africa from 2012 to 2014. The current Chair is Australia.

The theme of the seminar this year is 'Fostering Partnership in IOR: Charting course for Maritime Cooperative Engagement'.