Sagar Maitri Mission – 4

Sagar Maitri Mission – 4

News: Recently, INS Sagardhwani started on a two-month long Sagar Maitri (SM) Mission-4 from Southern Naval Command (SNC), Kochi.

What is Sagar Maitri Mission?
• The Sagar Maitri Mission is an initiative of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India. The mission supports the broad objective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy declaration ‘Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR)’.
• The aim is to promote closer cooperation in socio-economic aspects as well as more significant scientific interaction, especially in ocean research among Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) countries.
• Under the aegis of this policy, DRDO initiated a scientific component named ‘MAITRI (Marine and Allied Interdisciplinary Training and Research Initiative)’, which focuses on establishing long-term collaboration with IOR countries in the field of ‘Ocean Research and Development’.
• In the Sagar Maitri programme, INS Sagardhwani, an oceanographic research vessel of Naval Physical & Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) of DRDO, retraces the tracks of INS Kistna, which participated in the International Indian Ocean Expedition during 1962-65.
• The missions aim to establish long-term scientific partnerships and collaborations with Oman, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Myanmar — the eight IOR countries.
• The current mission (SM-4) plan includes scientific deployments onboard INS Sagardhwani in the Northern Arabian Sea and initiating collaborative research programmes with the Department of Marine Sciences & Fisheries at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. These missions give the scientists an opportunity to cooperate and build strong working relationships with their IOR counterparts studying the oceans.