Port calls of this kind are naval diplomacy rather than routine logistics. A warship at a foreign berth is a visible statement of capability, and opening it to the local Indian community on Independence Day ties that statement to the diaspora - a standing element of India's outreach in the Gulf. Oman is the most significant of those partners for the Navy: it sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, and Indian warships deployed for anti-piracy and maritime security in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean operate across those waters. For an exam answer, the point to hold is the double message of a ship like Imphal - the diplomacy of the visit, and the fact that the platform doing the visiting is about three-quarters indigenous, designed in-house by the Warship Design Bureau and built at Mazagon Dock. Naming it after Imphal, the first Indian warship to carry the name of a Northeastern city, adds a third: warship names are deliberate signals about which parts of the country the Navy chooses to honour.