WHY IN NEWS? Top defence officials from India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives participated in a virtual trilateral table top exercise “TTX-2021”. The exercise focused on maritime crimes like curbing narcotics and assistance in maritime search and rescue in the region. The two-day exercise, TTX-2021 aimed at enhancing mutual understanding and exchange of best practices procedures for countering common transnational crime was coordinated by the Maritime Warfare Centre, Mumbai. TTX-2021 exemplifies the deep trilateral engagement between India-Maldives-Sri Lanka which has strengthened immensely in the maritime domain over the past years. Interaction between the three neighbouring countries in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has also grown significantly in....Read More

Why in news ? Stockholm International Peace Research Institute(SIPRI) has released the SIPRI Yearbook 2021. The report assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security. About: Nine Nuclear-Armed States- the US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea together possessed an estimated 13,080 nuclear weapons at the start of 2021. Russia and the U.S. together possessed over 90% of global nuclear weapons. Further, both of them have an extensive and expensive modernisation programme underway. China is in the middle of significant modernisation and expansion of its nuclear weapon inventory. India and Pakistan also appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals.....Read More