New Delhi: The Indian Army Conducts routine military exercises every year. Exercise ‘Him Vijay’ was one such endeavour. It was conducted to validate operational capabilities of our combat formations. Training exercises are conducted from within available resources and funds. The exercise was an all Arms exercise and approximately a Division strength participated.

The engagement of our armed forces with foreign countries, including through military exercise, is reviewed from time to time and relevant steps, as required, are taken to engage foreign countries.

During the last three years and the current year, about 72 joint exercises were conducted by Army, 39 by Navy, 21 by Air Force and 2 Tri-Service Exercises were conducted.

This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik in a written reply to Sunil Tatkare and others in Lok Sabha today.

Naik revealed earlier this week that Naval Exercise ‘Milan 2020’ is scheduled to be held at Vishakhapatnam in March 2020, for which 41 countries have been invited.

The Indian Navy Guided Missile Stealth Frigate INS Trikand and Patrol Aircraft P8-I recently participated in the inaugural edition of the bilateral maritime exercise, ‘Roar of the Sea‘, between the Indian Navy and Qatari Emiri Naval Forces in Doha.

The maiden India-US joint tri-services Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Exercise ‘Tiger Triumph’ concluded last week. The exercise aimed at developing interoperability for conducting HADR operations.

India recently completed a joint military training Exercise Shakti-2019 with the French Army in Rajasthan, which included newly inducted HAL Rudra helicopters, the weaponised version of the Advanced Light Helicopter ‘Dhruv’ manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

The Indian Armed Forces were also in Uzbekistan for the first Indo-Uzbekistan joint military exercise Dustlik-2019, where training was focused on counter insurgency and counter terrorism operations in the urban scenario as well as sharing of expertise on skills at arms.