National
Flag Officer Commanding Maharashtra Naval Area
⇒ Rear Admiral Sandeep Mehta, VSM, handed over the baton of Flag Officer Commanding Maharashtra Naval Area (FOMA) to Rear Admiral AN Pramod on 28 November 2022 at an elegant ceremonial parade held at INS Kunjali Parade ground.
About Rear Admiral Pramod:
- Commissioned into the Indian Navy on 01 July 1990, Rear Admiral Pramod is a qualified Naval Air Operations Officer and a Communication and Electronic Warfare Specialist.
- He is an alumnus of the prestigious Naval Academy, Goa, the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, and the Naval War College, Goa.
Book ‘Swatantrata Sangram me Janjati Nayakon ka Yodgan’
⇒ The delegates of a National Workshop on ‘Janjatiya Anusandhan – Asmita, Astitva evam Vikas’ called on the President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre on November 28, 2022.
» President also received the first copy of the book ‘Swatantrata Sangram me Janjati Nayakon ka Yodgan’ from Shri Harsh Chouhan, Chairperson of National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
- The President said that bringing out the book ‘Swatantrata Sangram me Janjati Nayakon ka Yogdan’ is a good initiative. She expressed confidence that through this book, the stories of struggle and sacrifice of tribal communities would be widely disseminated across the country.
About National Workshop:
A two-day workshop on ‘Janjatiya Anusandhan- Asmita, Astitva evam Vikas’ organized by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) was held on November 27 and 28, 2022 in New Delhi.
Discussions and deliberations at the workshop revolved around important issues confronting the tribal communities and finding innovative solutions to the same.
- On the first day of the workshop discussion on the linkages of the STs from past to present and the need to decolonize the narratives of tribal research were held.
- On the second day of the workshop, discussions were held on the key issues like need to prevent degradation of natural resources and distress migration; reduce malnutrition and population under BPL, step up people’s participation in the development process and preserve traditional development system.
International
Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh pays an official visit to Cambodia
⇒ At the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence of Cambodia Samdech Pichey Sena TEA Banh, Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh paid an official visit to Cambodia from November 22-23, 2022.
» Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh reached Siem Reap, Cambodia on November 21, 2022.
- Upon his arrival, Shri Rajnath Singh held a bilateral meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence of Cambodia General TEA Banh.
During the visit, Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh co-chaired the maiden India-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting and attended the 9th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus).
Maiden India-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting:
» The maiden India-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting was held at Siem Reap, Cambodia to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of India-ASEAN relations in 2022, which was also designated as ‘ASEAN-India Friendship Year’.
Co-chair:
To commemorate 30 years of India-ASEAN relations, India and Cambodia co-chaired the maiden India-ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting on 22 November 2022.
- The meeting was co-chaired by Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence of Cambodia General Tea Banh.
» The Raksha Mantri, in his address, highlighted the historic and robust ties that India shares with ASEAN countries.
During this maiden India-ASEAN Defence Ministers meeting, Shri Singh proposed two major initiatives for further expanding the scope and the depth of the India-ASEAN defence relations.
- One of the initiatives proposed by Raksha Mantri was the ‘India-ASEAN Initiative for Women in UN Peace Keeping Operations’.
- This includes conduct of tailor-made courses for women peacekeepers of ASEAN Member States at the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping in India and conduct of a ‘Table Top Exercise’ in India for women officers from ASEAN incorporating facets of UN peacekeeping challenges.
- The Raksha Mantri underlined the importance of women officers in peacekeeping missions for ensuring lasting peace.
2. The second initiative announced by Shri Rajnath Singh was ‘India-ASEAN Initiative on Marine Plastic Pollution’.
- This includes channelising of the energy of the youth towards addressing the critical issue of marine pollution.
- He also proposed establishment of an India-ASEAN Marine Pollution Response Centre at Chennai by the Indian Coast Guard to address and supplement regional efforts to deal with marine pollution incidents.
Both the initiatives were very warmly received by the ASEAN defence leadership who unanimously and strongly endorsed its practicality and relevance.
» Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh held a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of Defence Mr Lloyd Austin in Siem Reap, Cambodia on 22 November 2022.
- The two Defence Ministers discussed wide range of issues of mutual interest while expressing their commitment to a strong India-US defence cooperation.
- The two leaders expressed their commitment towards an inclusive and rules-based Indo Pacific with freedom of navigation, overflight and unimpeded trade.
- They further discussed initiatives that can be taken to strengthen maritime cooperation between the two countries including in maritime domain awareness.
9th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus:
» Cambodia, as the chair of ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus (ADMM Plus) meeting, hosted the 9th annual meeting on November 23, 2022 in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh participated in the 9th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus in Siem Reap, Cambodia on November 23, 2022.
- During his address to the ADMM Plus forum, Shri Rajnath Singh called for urgent and resolute global efforts to counter transnational and cross-border terrorism, terming it as the gravest threat to regional and global security.
About ADMM Plus:
- The ADMM Plus is an annual meeting of Defence Ministers of ten ASEAN countries and its eight dialogue partner countries, viz., India, USA, Russia, China, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
- India became the dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992 and the inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Hanoi, Vietnam on October 12, 2010.
- Since 2017, ADMM-Plus Ministers have been meeting annually to further the dialogue and cooperation amongst ASEAN and the Plus countries.
- India and ASEAN have elevated their relationship to ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ in November 2022.
The objectives of the ADMM-Plus, are:
- To benefit ASEAN Member States in building capacity to address shared security challenges, while cognisant of the differing capacities of various ASEAN Member States;
- To promote mutual trust and confidence between defence establishments through greater dialogue and transparency;
- To enhance regional peace and stability through cooperation in defence and security, in view of the transnational security challenges the region faces;
- To contribute to the realisation of an ASEAN Security Community which, as stipulated in the Bali Concord II, embodies ASEAN’s aspiration to achieve peace, stability, democracy and prosperity in the region where ASEAN Member States live at peace with one another and with the world at large;
- To facilitate the implementation of the Vientiane Action Programme, which calls for ASEAN to build a peaceful, secure and prosperous ASEAN, and to adopt greater outward-looking external relation strategies with our friends and Dialogue Partners.
» The ADMM-Plus currently focuses on seven areas of practical cooperation, namely maritime security (MS), counter-terrorism (CT), humanitarian assistance and disaster management (HADR), peacekeeping operations (PKO), military medicine (MM), humanitarian mine action (HMA) and cyber security (CS).
Important Day
74th anniversary of NCC
⇒ National Cadet Corps (NCC), the largest uniformed youth organisation in the world raised in 1948, celebrated its 74th anniversary on November 27, 2022.
Emblem of the NCC:
The emblem of the NCC consists of 3 colours; red, dark blue and light blue. These colours represent the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force respectively. The 17 lotuses indicate the 17 directorates.
Motto: Unity and Discipline (एकता और अनुशासन)