{"id":66859,"date":"2024-03-03T07:55:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/india-navy-to-open-strategic-base-near-maldives\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T07:55:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:55:31","slug":"india-navy-to-open-strategic-base-near-maldives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/india-navy-to-open-strategic-base-near-maldives\/","title":{"rendered":"India navy to open strategic base near Maldives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>India\u2019s navy has said it is bolstering forces on \u201cstrategically important\u201d islands close to the Maldives, with a new base set to open just days before Male starts sending home Indian forces.<\/p>\n<p>Relations between India and the Maldives have soured since pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu won elections last year after promising to expel Indian forces.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1779065\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>India is suspicious of China\u2019s growing presence in the archipelago nation, which straddles key east-west international shipping routes, and the new base will extend New Delhi\u2019s \u201coperational surveillance\u201d of the area, the navy said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Muizzu has asked India to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1790245\">withdraw<\/a> 89 security personnel based in the Maldives to operate reconnaissance aircraft, with the first batch due to leave by March 10 and all to depart within two months.<\/p>\n<p>The new base, opening March 6 on India\u2019s Lakshadweep islands, will turn an existing small detachment into an \u201cindependent naval unit\u201d, according to the navy\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s Lakshadweep islands lie about 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the Maldives, with the new naval base on the island of Minicoy situated at their closest point.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s navy already has a base on the Lakshadweep island of Kavaratti, but the new base will be about 258 kilometres (160 miles) closer to the Maldives.<br \/>\n\u201cMinicoy is the southernmost island of Lakshadweep which straddles the vital sea lines of communications,\u201d the navy said.<\/p>\n<p>It said the base will boost anti-piracy and anti-narcotic operations, and was part of a policy to \u201cincrementally augment security infrastructure at the strategically important\u201d islands.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India\u2019s navy has said it is bolstering forces on \u201cstrategically important\u201d islands close to the Maldives, with a new base set to open just days before Male starts sending home Indian forces. Relations between India and the Maldives have soured since pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu won elections last year after promising to expel Indian forces. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/031144101b56371.jpg?r=114541","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}