Ndia will hold a series of naval drills starting August, including Malabar-2021, conducted along with the Australian, US and Japanese navies, the Indian Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd August, 2021) India will hold a series of naval drills starting August, including Malabar-2021, conducted along with the Australian, US and Japanese navies, the Indian Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
The ministry explained that India would hold several bilateral drills, including with Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, with the exercises set to take place in the region of Southeast Asia, the South China Sea and last more than two months.
Apart from that, the Indian navy will participate in the annual exercise with Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) partners in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, the ministry added.
The Malabar series was launched as bilateral India-US exercises in 1992. Japan joined the drills in 2015 and Australia in 2020. The inclusion of Australia was seen by some as a possible first step towards the militarization of Quad � an informal strategic forum between the United States, Japan, Australia and India � which Beijing has opposed in the past.
