Navy proposes operationalising Indian Ocean partnership initiative

The Indian Navy had already created a bouquet of initiatives and structures to manage the Indian Ocean

With China’s People’s Liberation Army (Navy), or PLA(N), flexing its muscles in the Western Pacific and extending its presence to the waters of the Indian Ocean, India’s Navy is countering by leading the creation of a new, broad-based security architecture in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

On Wednesday, at the 4th edition of the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD), Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar proposed that the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched in 2019, should now be operationalised. 

That would mean making active one, or more, of the seven pillars of the IPOI, of which four