The exercise will focus on anti-submarine warfare with both Australia and India deploying the largest number of assets to date, the Indian Navy said. India has for many years been conducting trilateral exercises with the US and Japan under the series codenamed Malabar. New Delhi has been seen as fighting shy of including Australia in the Malabar series despite India, Australia, the US and Japan sharing similar views on a “free and open Indo-Pacific" and freedom of navigation and overflight. AUSINDEX began in September 2015 off the coast of Visakhapatnam with Australia hosting the second edition off Freemantle in June 2017. “India has a positive defence relationship, underpinned by the 2006 Memorandum of Defence Cooperation and 2009 Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation.

Source: Mint April 02, 2019 18:33 UTC