IOS SAGAR is an initiative announced by the Indian Navy to enhance maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Providing an update on the event, Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS), Vice Admiral Tarun Sobti, said, "This time we are looking at going towards Southeast Asia (region)". This is going to be an annual event, and in 2026, it will start around the end of March, running up till May, a top naval official said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the inaugural session of the seventh edition of the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) being hosted by the Indian Navy here from October 28-30, DCNS informed. Indian Ocean Ship (IOS) SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) is an initiative aimed at fostering continued cooperation with IOR nations in pursuit of India's vision of Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions (MAHASAGAR).
"IOS Sagar, the vision that we had at naval headquarters for this was that...we realised that security, maritime security cannot be undertaken by one country alone, because this area is so large, no single country has the capacity to do it on its own. So we wanted to do it in a collective manner, and the vision that we had it was an idealistic vision that we would have one ship which would be crewed by nationalities of all the participating nations, and we would do EEZ surveillance of all the participating nations," he said.
"But the practical implementation of it was that the Indian Navy provided the ship, and we invited crews from many countries to join us, nine countries in fact, nearly 50 crew members, and we did a patrol of the southwest Indian Ocean," the DCNS added.
On April 5, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had flagged off IOS SAGAR from the strategically-located Karwar naval base in Karnataka under a mission that sought to reinforce India's commitment to regional maritime security and international cooperation. It was on a nearly month-long deployment in the southwest IOR.
The ship was commissioned in October 2013 and has a displacement tonnage of nearly 2,500 tonne. The tagline of IOS SAGAR is 'One Ocean One Mission'.
Vice Admiral Sobti then said that IOS SAGAR is "going to be an annual event and in 2026 we will have it again, starting sometime towards the end of March running up till May, and this time we are looking at going towards Southeast Asia (region)... So this is an annual event that we will carry forward".
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