Question: How many ships of Indian Navy’s Western Fleet reached South Africa on a three-day visit?
A) Two
B) Four
C) Three
D) Five
Ans: (C)
Related facts:
- On September 20, 2016 INS Kolkata, INS Trikand and INS Aditya arrived at Durban for a three-day visit.
- The ships are part of the Indian Navy’s Western Fleet based at Mumbai under the Western Naval Command. These are on a two-month long deployment to the Western Indian Ocean.
- INS Kolkata is commanded by Captain Rahul Vilas Gokhale, INS Trikand is commanded by Captain Arjun Dev Nair and INS Aditya is commanded by Captain Vidyanshu Srivastava.
- During the visit, the warships will have professional interactions with the South African Naval Forces (SAN) for enhancing co-operation and sharing the experience of naval operations including combating maritime threats of terrorism and piracy.
- Sporting and cultural interactions, aimed at strengthening ties and mutual understanding between the two forces, meeting with senior government and military authorities, training and technical cooperation is also part of the visit.
- The last visit by an Indian Naval ship to South Africa was in November 2014, when Indian Naval Ship Teg visited Simon’s Town and Cape Town.
- INS Teg’s visit was a part of Exercise IBSAMAR which was a trilateral maritime exercise involving navies of Brazil, India and South Africa.
- South African Naval Forces also participated in International Fleet Review hosted by India in February 2016 and were represented by SAN ship Spioenkop.
- The current visit aims at strengthening the existing bonds of friendship between India and South Africa and underscore India’s peaceful presence and solidarity with friendly countries of the region.
Reference:
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=150928
http://www.indiannavy.nic.in/content/visit-indian-naval-warship-trikand-maputo-mozambique