By Vice Adm DSP Verma And Cdr (Dr) Arnab Das
22 Nov , 2015
The deployment of nuclear powered submarines is a game changer. However, that comes with its own challenges. The deployment of the erstwhile INS Chakra way back in the year 1988, had experienced major operational difficulty, due to Snapping Shrimp noise, while being deployed off the East coast of India. Snapping Shrimps are found in very large groups in the tropical littoral waters and their acoustic signals are high intensity sound that can swamp the sonar display. The vast oceans/seas away and closer to our shores will require massive efforts and mass participation that may not be feasible by only research organisations. The user-academia partnership has been a weak area in India so far, particularly when it involves field experiments, but the requirement of such collaboration is inescapable now.
As the third largest body of water on the Earth, the Indian Ocean is an important resource providing the major sea routes connecting the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia with Europe and the Western hemisphere. Driven by Asia’s economic rise, the Indian Ocean is surpassing the Atlantic and Pacific as the world’s busiest and most strategically significant trade corridor. One-third of the world’s bulk cargo and around two-thirds of world oil shipments now passes through the Indian Ocean. An estimated 40 per cent of the world’s offshore oil production comes from the Indian Ocean. South Asia ranks among the world’s most densely-populated regions, containing almost 1.6 billion people – about a quarter of all the people in the world.
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