India-France joint military drill kicks off in Meghalaya

India and France kicked off on Monday the 7th edition of India- France Joint Military Exercise at Umroi in northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya. In a statement, the Indian Ministry of Defense said that the Exercise 'SHAKTI' conducted alternatively in India and France is scheduled to be held from 13th to 26th May. The joint exercise aims "to enhance joint military capability of both sides to undertake multi-domain operations in a sub conventional scenario" with focus on operations in the semi-urban and mountainous terrain. High degree of physical fitness, rehearsing and refining drills for operations at tactical level and sharing of best practices are the main objectives of the exercise. "Tactical drills to be practiced during the Exercise will include response to a terrorist action of capturing a defined territory, establishment of a joint command post, and intelligence and surveillance center, securing of a helipad-landing site, small team insertion and extraction, special Heliborne operations, cordon and search operations besides employment of drones and counter drone systems among others," the statement added. It is expected to help both the sides to share their best practices in tactics, techniques and procedures of conducting joint operations. It will also help develop inter-operability between military personnel of the two countries in addition to cementing defense cooperation and bilateral relations between the two nations. Source: Kuwait News Agency