Indian, Royal Navy to take part in exercise Konkan 2016

The 2016 edition of the annual bilateral maritime exercise between the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy would be held December 5 – 16, at Mumbai and Goa, the Indian Navy announced.

Named after the Western coastal region of India, exercise Konkan was institutionalised in 2004 and is hosted in rotation by both the navies.

INS Trikand traveled to UK naval Base Devonport last year for the 2015 iteration of the exercise.

The exercise will be conducted in two phases at Mumbai and Goa. The first phase, to be held from Dec 5-9 would be a command planning exercise involving the two navies, where planners from both sides will undertake planning for combined maritime operations.

The second phase is a live exercise (LIVEX), to be held from Dec 12 – 16 at Goa, and involves interaction between the IN Marine Commandos (MARCOs) and the Royal Marines. Both phases will involve sharing of best practices and lessons learnt from recent operations, especially in the field of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO).