Indian Navy To Setup Fusion Centre In Indian Ocean Region To Boost Maritime Security, Information Exchange

Indian Navy is all set to establish the information fusion centre (IFC) for the Indian Ocean Region at the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) in Gurugram, The Hindu has reported. The centre will be formally inaugurated later this week.

“The IFC-IOR is established with the vision of strengthening maritime security in the region and beyond, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and acting as a maritime information hub for the region,” a defence official told The Hindu.

The centre is aimed at collecting the data on commercial shipping or ‘white shipping’ in the Indian Ocean region. This will improve the Indian Navy’s ‘Maritime Domain Awareness’. Countries that have already signed white shipping information exchange agreements with India are IFC partners according to an official who spoke to The Hindu.

Participants of IFC will now have the option of positioning liaison officers at the IFC. However, the requisite infrastructure for their presence is yet to be created. The centre will start with ‘virtual presence’ of foreign officials. Information exchange at the IFC would be initially undertaken by virtual means like telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and video conferencing.