The nuclear-powered American aircraft carrier USS Nimitz that made a port call in Chennai earlier this month triggering protests by the Left parties is all set to return to the Indian shore in the first week of September.
Along with other American warships USS Nimitz and conventionally-powered carrier USS Kitty Hawk will participate in a five-nation war game in the Bay of Bengal off Vishakhapatnam, which is going to be one of the largest naval exercises in the Indian waters, official sources said.
While as many as 20 foreign ships from USA, Australia, Singapore and Japan are expected to participate in the exercise, the Indian contingent will comprise its lone aircraft carrier INS Viraat, a Delhi-class destroyer, a Talwar-class stealth frigate, a tanker and the shore-based aircraft of the eastern naval command. The exercise, sources said, is an “extended form of Indo-US Malabar series of exercises” where three more countries will participate.
The last Malabar exercise happened in April in the northwest Pacific.
A nuclear-powered submarine may also come for the exercise though the details are yet to be finalised.
This will be the first big-time engagement between Indian and Australian navies in the Indian waters. An Indian warship had made port calls at Perth and Sydney in the past and an Australian warship had arrived in Goa in 2006 but exercises were called off due to bad weather.
Left parties unhappy
However, though the return of Nimitz is unlikely to generate the same intensity of protests this time around, the comrades have already expressed its displeasure in India’s display of military muscle flexing in a regional grouping in the shores. “It will affect our powerful Look East policy involving ASEAN nations. This kind of policy with groupings, which was not in the interest of India, would be detrimental to the bilateral relationship with China,” CPM Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury had stated.
The exercise may not be liked by Beijing, which has expressed concern on having an anti-China group in the Asia-Pacific region.
