In pursuit of India’s ‘Look East’ and ‘Act East’ policy, the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet ships under the command of Rear Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh, VSM, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet (FOCEF), are on a two month long operational deployment to South East Asia and Southern Indian Ocean. As part of the deployment, two of the Indian warships, INS Ranvir (a Guided Missile Destroyer) and INS Kamorta (an indigenously built Anti Submarine Corvette) entered Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the other two warships including INS Satpura, an indigenously built guided missile stealth frigate and INS Shakti, a sophisticated fleet tanker and support ship, entered Sattahip, Thailand today on a four day visit respectively. The previous visit by an Indian Naval ship to Thailand was in Jun 10.
The visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries as well as fostering inter-operability between the navies of these two friendly nations.
These ships are on the return leg after a 45 day deployment. During the stay in harbour, various activities such as official calls, professional interaction between personnel of both the navies, reception onboard and ship visits have been planned. On departure from Sihanoukville, INS Ranvir & INS Kamorta will exercise with the Cambodian Navy for enhancing interoperability in Maritime Operations including Search and Rescue. These ships have visited Singapore, Jakarta (Indonesia), Freemantle (Australia) and Kuantan (Malaysia) during deployment. During this deployment two warships also participated in the bilateral exercise SIMBEX-15 with the Royal Singapore Navy from 20-26 May 15.
It was my great privileged to visit the Naval Ship (INS RANVIR) when they visited the Sihanouk Ville.
It was also a great pleasure meeting many naval officers.