Navy to helm centre on maritime security-The Information Fusion Centre will serve countries that have White Shipping Information Exchange agreements with India
- The Navy will formally inaugurate the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
- Through this Centre, information on “white shipping”, or commercial shipping, will be exchanged with countries in the region to improve maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean.
- The IFC-IOR is established with the vision of strengthening maritime security in the region and beyond, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and acting as a maritime information hub for the region.
Gurugram headquarters
- The IFC has been established at the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) in Gurugram, which is the single point centre linking all the coastal radar chains to generate a seamless real-time picture of the nearly 7,500-km coastline.
- Establishment of the IFR-IRO would ensure that the entire region is benefited by mutual collaboration and exchange of information and understanding the concerns and threats which are prevalent in the region.
Maritime network
- In a related development, India has signed the ascension agreement to the Trans Regional Maritime Network (T-RMN) which facilitates information exchange on the movement of commercial traffic on the high seas.
- The multilateral construct comprises of 30 countries and is steered by Italy.
AIS systems on ships
- The information is available primarily through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) fitted on merchant ships with more than 300 gross registered tonnage as mandated by the International Maritime Organisation.
- The AIS information comprises name, MMSI number, position, course, speed, last port visited, destination and so on.
- This information can be picked up through various AIS sensors including coastal AIS chains and satellite based receivers.
- Such multilateral agreements are necessitated due to the large traffic in the Indian Ocean which cannot be entirely monitored by any one nation.
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