India Participated In 80 Joint Military Exercises In 4 Years

NEW DELHI (PTI): India has participated in 80 joint military exercises with friendly foreign countries in the last four years, Defence Minister A K Antony has said.

"24 joint exercises with foreign countries were carried out every year between 2008 to 2010. This year till the month of July eight such exercises have been conducted," Antony told the Lok Sabha on Monday in reply to a question.

The Defence Minister, however, maintained, "There are no such agreements entered into by the government (with participating nations) during such exercises."

Exercise specific coordination and administrative issues are mutually agreed upon by the participating units before the conduct of exercises, he said.

Replying to a query on request from other countries for providing counter-insurgency training to their military personnel, Antony said there is no such proposal to impart such training abroad.

"Amongst other training courses, Indian Army has provided counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism training to individual officers as well as groups from friendly foreign countries at the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS), at Vairangate in Mizoram," he said.

For the year 2011-12, a total of 17 countries including US, UK, Afghanistan, Israel, Sri Lanka and Myanmar have requested India for training their troops at CIJWS.

On the schedule of joint naval exercise between Indian and Russian Navy, Antony said future action plan will depend on mutual convenience of the two sides.

On whether government has postponed or cancelled joint naval exercise with Russia, Antony said, "Indian Navy had proposed and Russian Navy conveyed its readiness to conduct INDRA-11 off Vladivostok in February 2011. However, due to the situation arising from Tsunami and nuclear radiation disaster in Japan the exercise was postponed."

Indo-Russia combined exercises named 'INDRA' are conducted once every two years since 2003, the minister said.

"The Indian and Russian navies work out proposals for conduct of the INDRA exercise based on mutually convenient dates," he added.