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Maldives is a "challenge" for India at the moment as its current government is more inclined towards China, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said on Wednesday, 23 May, indicating that the ties between New Delhi and Male are yet to reach a level of normalcy.
Lanba, however, added that patrolling of the Maldives Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by the Indian Navy has again commenced and that India would continue to work with the government of the archipelago nation.
He also said there is no necessity to get a military dimension to the Quad involving India, the US, Australia and Japan.
During the crisis, India had ignored calls for military intervention from the opposition parties in the island nation.
The influence of China on Maldives, an island nation in the Indian ocean, considered a backyard of India, has been growing and it is seen as a concern in New Delhi.
"We (India) have an EEZ patrolling (exercise) that we regularly do with Maldives. We just finished one (exercise) last week. The one (exercise) previously held had been called off by the Maldivian government, but that has been recommenced. We continue to train their personnel. We just finished a special forces training camp. We will continue to work with the Maldivian government," Lanba said.
Responding to another question on the Quad, the Navy chief said it was a discussion forum for international good order and peace and following the norms of the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS).
"We are not going down that route. I don't think there is a necessity to get a military dimension to the Quad," he said.
The meeting was held in Manila in November last year, which was attended by leaders of the four countries.
Lanba said the rapid growth of the Chinese navy is "apparent" and it is also in collusion with other "adversaries" in the Indian Ocean region.
On a question on deployment of tactical nuclear weapons at sea by Pakistan, the Navy chief said there is no such information, but Islamabad is in the process of developing a cruise missile which it hopes to fit on a submarine that is being built in China.
The missile, he said, is also being built with the help of Chinese technology.
He said the Indian Navy is "well-poised" for handling any exigency and the strategic roadmap the force follows keeps it ready for "assuring peace and winning wars should that become inevitable".
Lanba said India and Bangladesh will hold its first coordinated patrol next month.
Responding to a question on whether he had any interaction with former Navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for alleged spying, in his career.
Pakistan permitted a meeting between Jadhav and his mother and wife at Islamabad in December last year.
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