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Army to hold five joint exercises

Sandeep Dikshit

Two with the United States, one each with Russia, China and Thailand

First time with Thailand and China
Exercises to begin next month

NEW DELHI: The Army plans to hold at least five joint exercises with their counterparts from Russia, Thailand, China and the United States.

Army sources said that while two exercises will be held with the U.S., one each will be held with Russia, Thailand and China.

The exercise with Thailand will be the first-ever and follows the setting up of an institutional mechanism to promote bilateral security-related ties.

All these exercises will take place after India participates in the biggest ever multi-nation naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal early next month, involving the U.S., Singapore, Japan and Australia.

The joint exercises will begin next month with an interaction between the Army’s Special Forces and the U.S. Marines at the Jungle Warfare School in Mizoram.

The U.S. Marines are familiar with the venue, having conducted exercises last year with counter-insurgency as the backdrop. The two armies will get to interact with each other in a high altitude area towards the end of the year but the venue has not been finalised.

In between, troops from Thailand will arrive to practise anti-insurgency manoeuvres at the Sikh Regimental Centre in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. Considerable portions of Hazaribagh district are under the grip of Maoists.

The exercises will take place at a routine venue.

The sources were reluctant to dwell on the exercises with Russia, which, for the first time, will be held there.

With China too, the exercises will be held for the first time, in the Chengdu military region.

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