In pursuit of India’s ‘Act-East’ policy, the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet is on an operational deployment to South East Asia and Southern Indian Ocean.

Two Indian warships, INS Ranvir, a Guided Missile Destroyer, and INS Shakti, a sophisticated Fleet Tanker and Support Ship, arrived at Jakarta, Indonesia, on a four-day visit. The visit is aimed at further strengthening inter-operability between the navies of these two friendly nations. Both navies have been conducting regular coordinated patrols. Indonesia forms the south bank of the strategically vital Straits of Malacca, through which large amounts of crude oil and gas, besides cargo, is shipped. These two ships along with INS Satpura, an indigenously built guided missile stealth frigate and INS Kamorta, an anti-submarine ship, are on a two-month-long deployment.The first stop was Singapore where the fleet participated in the bilateral naval exercise SIMBEX with the Republic of Singapore Navy between May 20 and May 26.