Current Affairs

Issue

India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are jointly participating in the 15th biennial trilateral coast guard exercise ‘Dosti’ in Maldives.

 

Background

The 2021 marks 30 years of the exercise. Sri Lanka and Maldives are strategic importance to New Delhi and to its maritime security interests.

 

Details

• Indian coast guard ships ICGS Vajra and ICGS Apoorva will be participating along with Sri Lankan vessel SLCGS Suraksha for the five-day exercise.

• For many years since the exercise was launched in 1991, it was bilateral between India and Maldives.

• The Sri Lankan coast guard joined for the first time and since then, it has been a trilateral exercise.

 

Aim

The major aim of the exercise is to strengthen the friendship, enhance mutual operational capability, and exercise interoperability and to build cooperation between the Coast Guards of Maldives, India and Sri Lanka.

 

Benefits

• These exercises help in enhancing interoperability between different countries while conducting joint operations.

• These exercises will help coast guard in undertaking anti-piracy operations. They can also handle ecological disaster like an oil spill, or marine disaster.

• There are various rules for entering EEZ and continental shelf of another country. These joint exercises help with developing an understanding of these specifics.

 

Security concerns

India, Sri Lanka and Maldives have decided to jointly work on “four pillars” of security cooperation. They are marine security, human trafficking, counter-terrorism and cyber security.