Antony to launch two defence projects

Defence Minister A K Antony will launch two major Defence initiatives here on Saturday.

Antony will inaugurate the remote operating station of the coastal radar chain of the state at the Coast Guard District Headquarters at Fort Kochi. Later, he will flag off INS Sudarshini, the sail training ship of the Indian Navy for a historic voyage around the countries of South East Asia.

The static radar chain project, which aims at preventing undetected intrusions and monitoring of coastal traffic, presently has radars installed atop the light-houses at Ezhimala, Ponnani, Vypeen and separately in a structure at Kollam. The feed from these sensors will be available at the Coast Guard District Headquarters, along with inputs of thermal imaging cameras and Automatic Identification System (AIS).

The sensor data generated from the network will flow over a network connecting the district headquarters, the regional headquarters and the Coast Guard Headquarters at New Delhi.

The ASEAN expedition of INS Sudarshini is a collaborative venture between the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Navy and the Ministry of External Affairs to commemorate 20 years of dialogue partnership and 10 years of summit-level partnership with ASEAN. INS Sudarshini will visit 13 ports of nine ASEAN countries and will return in March 2013. En route, in addition to Indian Cadets, international trainees are also expected to be embarked cementing and celebrating the ties between India and countries of ASEAN.