Milan Naval Exercise:- Milan is a joint naval exercise hosted by the Indian Navy. MILAN started as a biennial event in 1995 and was held in Andaman and Nicobar Command till 2018. The exercise will be conducted on the mainland at the Eastern Naval Command (ENC), Visakhapatnam in March 2020 for the first time and features professional exercises, seminars, social events and sporting fitment between participated countries. But according to Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh China will be excluded from Milan 2020. Possibly border tensions, Kashmir issue and recent naval exercise with Pakistan in December 2019.
History of Milan Naval Exercise
The first Milan naval exercise was held in 1995 with the cooperation of five countries that was India, Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. But now Milan has become a group of forty-one countries, including the US and Russia and some other countries. Because India send an invitation for 2020 to Indonesia, Russia, Japan, France, Mozambique, Sudan, Israel, Qatar, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Somalia, Kenya, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, New Zealand, USA, Tanzania, Comoros, Maldives, Brunei, Philippines, UK, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Mauritius, Cambodia, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, Kuwait, Iran, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Djibouti, Eritrea, Bahrain, UAE, and Seychelles. Its objective was to have an effective forum to discuss usual concerns in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and build up deep collaboration among friendly nations navy.
The development in Milan Exercises
Milan exercise has been successfully conducted 10 times from the beginning till 2018 and in the next year i.e. 2020, it will be held for 11th times at Visakhapatnam. The exercise is organized every 2 years. But in 2001 & 2016 Milan exercise was not held due to the International Fleet Review. In 2005 it was postponed to 2006 due to the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
Recent Naval Exercise, MILES-2018
The last Milan naval exercise (10th edition) was held from 6 to 13 March 2018 at the coast of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The participating countries was – Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, New Zealand, Oman, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam.