The annual apex-level international conference of the Indian Navy – the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) – will be held in New Delhi from November 15-17 and the event includes a Keynote Address by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on November 15, navy officials said here on Tuesday.
A series of Special Addresses by Union Ministers and senior officers of the government of India are also scheduled to provide overarching guidance to the deliberations of this mega conference, they said.
The IPRD follows the Goa Maritime Conclave 2023 conducted by the Indian Navy from October 29-31. In terms of conceptual positioning, the Goa Maritime Conclave seeks to project the Indian Navy’s cooperative engagement at the strategic-operational level, by providing a forum for the Chiefs-of-Navy and Heads of Maritime Agencies in the Indian Ocean Region.
The IPRD, on the other hand, is the principal manifestation of the Navy’s international engagement at the strategic-level, addressing ‘holistic’ maritime security issues across the Indo-Pacific.
The first two editions of IPRD were held in 2018 and 2019 respectively at New Delhi. IPRD 2020 was cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The third edition of IPRD was held in 2021 in online mode and the fourth edition was conducted, reverting to a physical format, at New Delhi in 2022.
The overarching theme of IPRD-2023 is “Geopolitical Impacts upon Indo-Pacific Maritime Trade and Connectivity”.
This year’s edition of the IPRD builds upon the previous one, which focussed upon ‘Operationalising the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI)’, by specifically addressing the ‘Trade, Connectivity and Maritime Transport’ pillar of the IPOI. Both ‘Trade’ and ‘Maritime Transport’ are, of course, segments of maritime connectivity.