China lead grows as INS Rajput, Navy's 1st destroyer, retires today

The PLA(N) has been commissioning three new destroyers every year, while Indian defence shipyards have been barely completing one destroyer every 2-3 years

Indian Naval Ship (INS) Rajput, the Indian Navy’s first and oldest destroyer, will sail into the sunset today. The lead ship of India’s five Kashin-class destroyers, which was built by the erstwhile Soviet Union and commissioned in May 1980, will be decommissioned in Visakhapatnam after 41 years of service.
 
Beyond the nostalgia of decommissioning, in which the naval ensign and the commissioning pennant are ceremonially lowered for the last time at sunset, the Navy will be preoccupied with a hard operational reality: Before the end of this decade, all five of its Kashin-class destroyers —called the Rajput-class in India