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Tuesday Dec 24, 2024
Wednesday, 7 November 2018 02:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Indo-Lanka Initiatives (CILI) of the Pathfinder Foundation (PF) participated in the Goa Maritime Symposium organised by the Naval War College of the Indian Navy.
Centre for CILI Director Admiral Prof. Jayanath Colombage represented the PF at the symposium. The event was conducted in the coastal city of Goa, India with the participation of senior naval and Coast Guard officers, academics and subject matter experts from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia Kenya, Maldives, Myanmar, Mauritius, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The Naval War College (NWC) has established itself as an institution of transformation inculcating strategic outlook and distinct global awareness through its professional curriculum, thus enabling middle and senior level officers of the Indian Navy to retain combat edge at sea.
Over the years, NWC has transformed itself as a premier institution of higher learning bench-marked to the best in global standards. It provides a perfect setting for research-oriented thinking and evolving future concepts on ‘Core Issues’ confronting the Indian Navy.
Constantly evolving professional curriculum of the college has induced a greater scholarship and laid stronger intellectual foundation by exposing participants to a wide variety of competing views and perspectives on regional and global issues. Towards fostering friendly relations with India’s maritime neighbours, through the NWC, Goa hosted the first Goa Maritime Symposium in 2016. That was followed by the maiden Goa Maritime Conclave in 2017, which was attended by heads of maritime agencies/chiefs of navies of 10 Indian Ocean Rim countries.
In keeping with the upward academic trajectory, the NWC organised the International Goa Maritime Symposium on the theme ‘Building Stronger Maritime Partnerships in IOR’ on 16 October. The focus of the event was on capacity building among Indian Ocean Rim navies to tackle emerging maritime threats, in addition to discussing cooperation strategies for enhancing inter-operability among partner maritime agencies.
Prof. Colombage presented his paper titled ‘Capacity Building in the Indian Ocean Region: Desirability vs. Viability’. He highlighted the current geo-strategic situation in the Indian Ocean and argued that there is a need for a ‘rule based maritime order’ and freedom of navigation and overfly in the Indian Ocean. Therefore, the need for capacity building of maritime infrastructure.
He stated that economic development, integration and effective maritime governance are essential for common prosperity of the region and emphasised on the need to overcome ‘maritime blindness’ by collaborative efforts and burden sharing by Indian Ocean countries. Colombage also highlighted the need for a common Indian Ocean maritime strategy and the need for sharing of actionable information about activities at sea, through effective Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) concept.
The Chief of Indian Navy, Admiral Sunil Lanba and Commander-in-Chiefs of Western, Southern, Eastern and Andaman-Nicobar Commands of the Indian Navy participated in the symposium. Rear Admiral Nishantha Ulegetenna, Commander of Western Naval Area represented Sri Lanka Navy at this event.
