Left in no mood to ease protests against Malabar exercise

The Left parties today reiterated their stand of carrying out protests along the eastern coast of the country against the holding of a multilateral naval exercise codenamed Malabar in the Bay of Bengal.

New Delhi, Aug 25 : The Left parties today reiterated their stand of carrying out protests along the eastern coast of the country against the holding of a multilateral naval exercise codenamed 'Malabar' in the Bay of Bengal.

"The campaign will begin on September 4, the day when the exercise would begin, " Communist Party of India leader, D Raja told reporters here.

According to the Left parties' plan, two jathas (protest groups) will be heading to Vishakapatnam, one from Kolkata, led by CPI leader A B Bardhan and another by CPI (M) leader Prakash Karat from Chennai.

The Left views the exercise as a manifestation of India's growing strategic alliance with the US.

The Malabar exercise, where ships and frigates from Singapore, Japan and Australia will be participating along with 13 US and a dozen Indian ships off the Andaman and Nicobar coast in the Bay of Bengal, will also for the first time witness three aircraft carriers- USS Nimitz (US), USS Kitty Hawk (US) and INS Viraat (India)- and nuclear powered submarine participating.

There were suggestions from the political quarters within the ruling UPA to suspend the mammoth naval exercise in view of Communists' growing ire against the Congress-led Government over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

The naval exercise was planned a year ahead and it was finalised after three stages of preparations that included discussions on availability of logistics and ships.

Meanwhile, US Pacific Command Chief, Admiral Timothy J Keating, who is here ahead of the naval exercise, said that he was unaware of postponement, and said that besides interoperability US was looking forward to sharing of information and databases to counter terrorism globally.

The six-day exercise will mark the tenth year of the Malabar joint naval exercise with the US where dozens of ships will prepare themselves to face any 'multi -threat scenario'.

One of the new manoeuvres that would be adopted in this exercise is the component of Air Defence part in which Jaguar aircraft of Indian Air Force and P3C Orion aircraft from Japan and the US side will be taking part.

The Malabar exercise has grown in scale and complexity over the years.

In 2006, the 14-day long joint naval exercise in the Arabian Sea had seen participation of US ships like amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, Guided Missile Destroyers USS Benfold and USS Howard, Guided Missile Cruiser USS Bunker Hill and US Coast Guard Ship Midgett.

US' nuclear powered submarine SSN Providence, also took part in the 2006 exercise, but never before three aircraft carriers took part simultaneously, which is the star attraction this year.

ANI