India, Thailand, Singapore’s trilateral naval drill this month

News:India, Thailand and Singapore will conduct their first-ever trilateral naval exercise in the Andaman Sea between 16th-20th September,2019.

Facts:

About the Naval exercise:

• The trilateral exercise is aimed at ensuring free and unhindered shipping flow through the Malacca Straits.
• The exercise would involve Indian destroyer Ranvir along with a Singapore frigate and Thai multi-purpose warship.
• Further,India is hopeful that Malaysia and Indonesia will join the exercise to ensure that sea lanes connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific are protected from any unilateral aggressive move.

Additional information:

About strait

• A strait is a naturally formed, narrow, typically navigable waterway that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water.
• It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses.
• But it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not navigable, for example because it is too shallow or because it contains an unnavigable reef or archipelago.

Malacca strait:

• Malacca strait is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.
• It is the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.