INS Jatayu

• Naval Detachment Minicoy has been commissioned as INS Jatayu, an upgraded naval base
• While India has had a naval detachment in Minicoy, the southernmost atoll of the Lakshwadeep archipelago, since the 1980s, INS Jatayu will effectively be the country’s second naval base in Lakshadweep.
• The Navy’s first base on the islands, INS Dweeprakshak in Kavaratti, was commissioned in 2012.
• It marks an important milestone in the Indian Navy’s resolve to incrementally augment security infrastructure at the strategic Lakshadweep Islands.

ABOUT THE ISLANDS

• Lakshadweep, ‘a hundred thousand islands’in Sanskrit and Malayalam, is an archipelago of 36 islands.
• The islands, only 11 of which are inhabited, have a total area of only 32 sq km.
• The Lakshadweep are part of a chain of coralline islands in the Indian Ocean that includes Maldives to the south, and the Chagos archipelago farther beyond, to the south of the equator.
• Given their location in the Indian Ocean, the Lakshadweep are of huge strategic importance to India.
• Minicoy straddles vital Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) — the world’s main maritime highways — including the Eight Degree Channel (between Minicoy and Maldives) and the Nine Degree Channel (between Minicoy and the main cluster of Lakshadweep islands).

ABOUT INS JATAYU

• The existing Naval Detachment Minicoy, which is under the operational command of the Naval Officer-in-Charge (Lakshadweep), will be commissioned as INS Jatayu.
• A naval detachment has administrative, logistics, and medical facilities.
• INS Jatayu will be upgraded to a naval base with additional infrastructure such as an airfield, housing, and personnel, after obtaining the requisite environmental and other clearances.
• The establishment of the base is in line with the government’s focus on comprehensive development of the islands.
• The Naval base will enhance operational reach, facilitate its anti-piracy and anti-narcotics operations in the western Arabian Sea, and augment Indian Navy’s capability as the first responder in the region.