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Vice Admiral Damian Fernando, Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy, is on an official visit to India from 26 to 29 August 2026, his first since taking over, aimed at strengthening bilateral maritime cooperation and navy-to-navy engagement.
He was accorded a ceremonial Guard of Honour at South Block, New Delhi and laid a wreath at the National War Memorial on 27 August 2026, and held discussions with Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Chief of the Naval Staff, on joint operations, capacity building, training and maritime security measures.
He is also meeting senior defence officials and representatives of the Indian defence industry, and will travel to Kochi to visit Indian naval training establishments and Headquarters Southern Naval Command.
Bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the Sri Lanka Navy to build interoperability, exchange best practices and conduct multi-faceted maritime operations jointly
Key: Conceptualised and first held in 2005. The 12th edition, SLINEX-25, ran from 14 to 18 August 2025 in two phases, a harbour phase at Colombo from 14 to 16 August and a sea phase on 17 and 18 August.
Provide an umbrella framework that makes the two countries' existing defence cooperation activities structured and predictable rather than ad hoc
Key: Signed on 6 April 2025 during the Prime Minister's visit to Colombo, it is the first-ever defence cooperation agreement between the two countries. It runs for five years, covers high-level visits, joint exercises, capacity building, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, naval port calls and defence industry cooperation, and may be terminated on three months' notice.
India's maritime doctrine for the Indian Ocean Region, announced in 2015, combining maritime security, economic cooperation, connectivity, sustainable development and disaster relief for India's maritime neighbourhood
Key: Framed India as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean and shaped a decade of capacity-building assistance to Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles.
The successor formulation to SAGAR, unveiled during the Prime Minister's visit to Mauritius in March 2025, extending the doctrine beyond the Indian Ocean rim to the wider Global South
Key: Adds trade and connectivity for development, technology sharing and capacity building for maritime states to SAGAR's largely security-centric and regional focus. Mahasagar also means ocean in Hindi and several other Indian languages.
The Indian Navy's Training Command since 1 July 1986, responsible for framing and executing training policy and for training officers and sailors from basic to advanced stages, and the largest of the Navy's commands. The Navy's other two commands are the Western Naval Command at Mumbai and the Eastern Naval Command at Visakhapatnam
Regional maritime security grouping that began in 2011 as a trilateral of India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, went dormant after 2014 and was revived and renamed in 2020. It works on five pillars: maritime safety and security; countering terrorism and radicalisation; combating trafficking and transnational organised crime; cyber security and protection of critical infrastructure; and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
A voluntary forum of littoral states of the Indian Ocean Region for maritime cooperation, conceived by the Indian Navy, with its inaugural edition held in New Delhi in 2008; members are grouped into sub-regions by geography
India's memorial to armed forces personnel who died in conflicts after Independence in 1947. Visiting foreign military chiefs lay wreaths here, a role earlier performed at the Amar Jawan Jyoti
SAGAR, announced in 2015, set out India's role in the Indian Ocean Region: secure its own maritime interests, deepen economic and security cooperation with maritime neighbours, build their capacity and act as a first responder in disasters, in short a net security provider for its immediate maritime neighbourhood. MAHASAGAR, unveiled in Mauritius in March 2025, keeps that content but widens the map. It extends the same offer of security cooperation, trade and connectivity, technology sharing and capacity building to the wider Global South rather than the Indian Ocean rim alone, and it gives economic and developmental cooperation equal billing with security. Visits such as this one, where a neighbouring navy chief tours Indian training establishments and meets Indian defence manufacturers, are the routine working expression of that doctrine: training slots, joint exercises and equipment supply are the instruments through which it actually operates.
Simple Analogy: SAGAR was a neighbourhood watch scheme for the Indian Ocean; MAHASAGAR keeps the same scheme, extends membership to houses several streets away, and adds shared tools and trade to the shared security.
The visit traces the two ends of India's naval relationship with Sri Lanka. New Delhi is the ceremonial and policy end, with South Block housing the Ministry of Defence and Naval Headquarters, and the National War Memorial standing in the India Gate complex. Kochi, on the Malabar coast of Kerala, is the working end: it hosts Headquarters Southern Naval Command, the Navy's Training Command, and the training establishments where officers of friendly foreign navies are trained. Across the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar lies Colombo, headquarters of the Sri Lanka Navy, host of the SLINEX harbour phase and seat of the Colombo Security Conclave secretariat. The two countries are separated at their nearest point by the Palk Strait, with the island of Katchatheevu lying within it, and Sri Lanka sits astride the east-west shipping lanes that make the region strategically valuable.
SLINEX conceptualised and the first India-Sri Lanka bilateral naval exercise held
Trilateral maritime security cooperation between India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives begins, the forerunner of the Colombo Security Conclave
SAGAR, Security and Growth for All in the Region, announced as India's Indian Ocean doctrine
The dormant trilateral is revived and renamed the Colombo Security Conclave
Mauritius joins the Colombo Security Conclave
Bangladesh joins the Colombo Security Conclave as its fifth member
MAHASAGAR unveiled during the Prime Minister's visit to Mauritius, widening SAGAR to the Global South
India and Sri Lanka sign their first-ever defence cooperation MoU during the Prime Minister's visit to Colombo, valid for five years
SLINEX-25, the 12th edition, conducted at and off Colombo
Vice Admiral Damian Fernando assumes office as the 27th Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy
His maiden official visit to India, covering New Delhi and Kochi
The Indian Navy's standing deployments at Indian Ocean choke points are the operational counterpart to visits like this, and both are cited as evidence of India acting as a first responder and net security provider.
The irritant that runs alongside the cooperation: Indian fishermen detained by the Sri Lanka Navy in the Palk Bay is a recurring bilateral issue and the standard Mains counterpoint to the security convergence.
The long-term lease of Hambantota to a Chinese firm and visits by Chinese research vessels are the strategic context for India's push on defence training, exercises and equipment supply.
Three Indian Ocean groupings that examiners deliberately confuse: IONS is a naval forum, IORA an inter-governmental economic and maritime body and BIMSTEC a Bay of Bengal regional grouping. Sri Lanka belongs to all three.
The visiting Commander's meetings with Indian defence industry representatives fit the wider policy of exporting Indian-built platforms to Indian Ocean navies, of which Sri Lanka and Mauritius are early customers.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > India and its Neighbourhood; GS Paper 3 > Security > Maritime Security
General Awareness > Defence Exercises and Maritime Cooperation
General Awareness > Current Affairs > Defence Exercises
India's Indian Ocean outreach, bilateral naval exercises and neighbourhood defence agreements recur every year in Prelims defence questions and in GS Paper 2 Mains.
Sri Lanka India Naval Exercise, the bilateral naval exercise between the two navies, first held in 2005; the 12th edition took place in August 2025 at and off Colombo.
Maritime security grouping begun in 2011 as an India-Sri Lanka-Maldives trilateral, revived in 2020, with a permanent secretariat at Colombo and five pillars of cooperation.
Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions, India's maritime vision announced in March 2025, extending SAGAR to the wider Global South.
Security and Growth for All in the Region, India's 2015 maritime doctrine for the Indian Ocean Region.
Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, a voluntary forum of Indian Ocean littoral navies conceived by the Indian Navy, with its inaugural edition in New Delhi in 2008.
The Indian Navy's Training Command since 1 July 1986, headquartered at Kochi; the other commands are Western at Mumbai and Eastern at Visakhapatnam.