AP photo

NEW DELHI: The first-ever tri-Service exercise between India and the US will focus on large-scale amphibious HADR (humanitarian relief and disaster relief) operations along the eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal in November.

The exercise, “Tiger Triumph”, which was announced by US President Donald Trump during the “Howdy Modi” event at Houston on Sunday will be held off Visakhapatnam and Kakinada. “The final planning conference for the HADR exercise, with delegates from US Navy and the Marine Corps, was held at the Eastern Naval Command at Vizag last week,” said an official on Monday.

This will be only the second time India will deploy assets and manpower from its Army, Navy and IAF together for an exercise with a foreign country after the Indra wargames were held with Russia at Vladivostok in 2017, as was earlier reported by TOI.

Russia has been India’s long-standing defence supplier since the 1960s but the militaries from the two countries have not exercised much together. India and the US, in sharp contrast, hold a flurry of combat exercises every year, which range from the top-notch naval Malabar (with Japan as the third participant) to the counter-terror Vajra Prahar and Yudh Abhyas drills between their armies.

The two countries have also been steadily cranking up the scope, strength, complexity and frequency of their bilateral wargames as part of their “strategic partnership and convergence”. The US, of course, has also emerged as one of the largest defence suppliers to India, having bagged defence deals worth $18 billion just since 2007.

Trump, during his speech at Houston, said the US was set to further increase its arms sales to India. As was first reported by TOI in June, India is in fact lining up defence deals worth around $10 billion for the US over the next two-three years.

These range from 10 more Poseidon-8I long-range maritime patrol aircraft (over $3 billion) and 24 naval multi-role MH-60 ‘Romeo’ helicopters ($2.6 billion) to the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System-II for the missile shield over Delhi (almost $1 billion) and six more Apache attack helicopters ($930 million). There is also the proposal to acquire 30 armed Sea Guardian (Predator-B) drones for over $2.5 billion from the US but it is yet to be finalized.

