“The diversity of the underwater domain, where everyone has something to do, is the beauty of this specific domain of underwater awareness”

In his opening remarks, Dr Pooran Pandey noted that Underwater Domain Awareness is integrally linked to a number of other topics.

For instance, a student of economics or of international affairs would focus his analysis of the entire region from a geostrategic and geo-economic perspective. By putting a price to it, economists will certainly try to view it from his perspective. On the other hand Climate scientists will attempt to understand it from the perspective of sustainable development goals.

He was of the opinion that The diversity of the underwater domain, where everyone has something to do, is the beauty of this specific domain of underwater awareness.

He shed light on the ability of domain awareness to recognise underwater assets and effectively secure our ability to cooperate with neighbouring countries.

He briefly discussed the alliance that Australia, the United States, and Japan have been attempting to form in order to compete for the title of maritime powers.

He also spoke about the Involvement of Companies in exploration for underwater mining and about the powerful submarines possessed by some countries.

He postulated that in order to establish a coalition, we must seriously mobilise various non-state entities as well as some regional entities, such as the business sector, academic institutions, media and Corporations

While concluding he mentioned the Nord Stream Gas Leak and felt that it had dangerous geopolitical ramifications. Such dangers underlined the need for effective International coalitions to bring nonstate and sub-national entities together, to ensure that we truly respect the sea, while utilising undersea resources.

View Recording on Youtube

• Dr Arnab Das began his address by calling upon the young generation to consider the Underwater Domain as a promising career opportunity. He then gave a presentation on the significance of the Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) Framework in achieving sustainable blue oceans. His key insights were:
  • Tropical Regions have unique challenges and opportunities pertaining to political, economic, military and physical facets.
  • Indo Pacific Strategic Space needs local site-specific field experimental R&D efforts.
  • While highlighting History of Underwater Domain: Dr Das took the audience through a brief tour of global efforts in the realm of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) and Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA). He touched upon the key points of the USS Connecticut accident, the underwater great wall project, strategic submarine deployment, snapping shrimp and other historic dimensions of UDA.
  • How the proposed UDA framework will provide safe, secure, and long-term growth in the entire Indo-Pacific region.
  • He shed light on some important components of environmental acoustic habitat degradation, freshwater systems, water resource management, and water quality management.

  In his concluding remarks Dr Das invited all the stakeholders to work hand in hand for the pooling of resources and synergizing efforts. He spoke on how the Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) Framework can also offer the youth of India some significant employment opportunities. He ended his presentation by highlighting the need for an outreach to engage and sustain a programme to sensitise various stakeholders with the formation of a Centre of Excellence under the aegis of MRC.

View Recording on Youtube

In an insightful address, Admiral Chawla spoke about the security aspects surrounding the underwater sector:

• The Indian Ocean is enclosed on three sides and connected to other oceans by a variety of waterways, all of which are crucial for global shipping
• He pointed out that 80% of all global oil movements either originate in the Indian Ocean region or pass through it. This has increased since the conflict in Ukraine. In the case of India, 90% of India’s trade is transoceanic.
• He made mention of China acquiring mining rights in two parts of the Indian Ocean and discussed why China poses a threat in the maritime domain and our need to develop smart underwater domain awareness.
• He spoke about the increase in construction of SSNs (nuclear assault submarines) which pose a security challenge to countries of this region.

While concluding he felt that that the starting point for Maritime Security is the collection of Oceanic Data. Hence, organisations, centres, and institutes must unite on a single platform to collect,  collate, process, analyse  and share data for Maritime Security.

View Recording on Youtube

Capt. Subhedar spoke about the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) 77 and the IMO’s initiatives to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions. H suggested that the MRC information documents be upgraded with an Indian context. He also spoke about India’s participation in the International Water Ballast Convention.

He spoke about the agenda for IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) 77 in the context of underwater noise (Blue Noise) and UDA.

Capt Subhedar highlighted two important points:

• UDA awareness and expertise can be utlised for safety of navigation, surveys and escorting of inland waterway vessels.
• The IMO will be looking at UDA from the perspective of the usefulness of its technology perspective and its domain awareness and the pollution angle of the noise.

He concluded by expressing his commitment to work with Maritime Research Centre for Safety of Navigation and Exploration of the seas.

View Recording on Youtube

Ms. Upadhayaya began asking the interesting question: “How much of the planet have we uncovered? “

She pointed out that the Gilgit region had been discovered by Europeans only in 1870 and stated that so much more of the world is yet to be discovered,

She then presented the following interesting statistics:

• 80% of the timber produced in Solomon Islands is exported to China. If this trend is allowed to continue, the island will run out of the tropical forest that makes up around 77% of its land area. There is civil unrest in the Islands’ and opposition to the unchecked exploitation of the country’s forestry resources.
• She revealed that environmental crime sentences have been passed in Fiji against Chinese resort developers.

She concluded by putting forth her vision for UDA as a ‘Coalition of Institutions and global citizens’ with a common goal.

View Recording on Youtube

Mr. Arora stated that we are living in times where energy is at the heart of global politics and the oceans are the next frontier for energy security The seas are central to our own national security.

• He spoke about India’s commitment to attain carbon neutrality by 2070, and highlighted the adaptations and changes we will need to make on the way to achieve this nett zero goal.
• He pointed out that only half a million square kilometres of ocean area has been explored for its natural resources.
• In his views the United States will progressively switch to non-biomass hydrogen. When it happens it will be an important gamechanger as we move forward in the future.”
• He pointed out that there has been insufficient study on using wind energy in India. in contrast Nordic nations are rapidly moving ahead in wind energy sectors.

He was of the opinion that national & marine security is greatly dependent on energy security and proposed the development of a more effective plan utilising the UDA framework.

View Recording on Youtube

Dr Mlinaric introduced ocean governance at the outset of his presentation. He continued by stating that the integration of geo-economics and economic viewpoints is crucial.

“The 17 Sustainable Development Goals announced in 2015 and the 2030 Agenda for the United Nations cannot be ignored” he   emphasised.

He highlighted the contributions of the European Union to the Indo-Pacific region in the areas like free trade agreements, development cooperation, humanitarian assistance partnerships, combating climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution control, lowering the risk of disasters, upholding international law, incorporating human rights and freedom of navigation.

He discussed the Indo-Pacific strategy with the release of the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, which has been signed by France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

He then spoke about the need to execute sustainable fishing partnership agreements in order to fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

The key issues highlighted by him included:

• Enhancing ocean governance
• Defending internal trade against unfiltered activities
• Collaboration with like-minded regional partners
• Digital connectivity for research and innovation
• Assisting health systems and pandemic preparedness

Dr Mlinaric concluded by saying that cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region is crucial for implementation of global policies, including achieving the UN sustainable development goals.

“The people of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region must work together to promote a green and sustainable socio-economic recovery for the well-being of our own people” he concluded.

View Recording on Youtube

Ambassador Goonetilleke concentrated on the Indo-Pacific’s  regional component, which is tied to global challenges and the raisson d’etre for the nomenclature of the Indo-Pacific.

While speaking about the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific, he stated: “Japan bears the responsibility of fostering the Confluence of the Pacific and Indian oceans as well as Asia and Africa into a place that values freedom, the rule of law, a market economy, free from force or coercion, and makes it prosperous.”

Amb. Goonetilleke gave a brief explanation of how the United States came to control the Indo-Pacific strategic framework and discussed how this was a calculated strategy to counter increasing China’s military and economic aggression.

He discussed Yang Huairen’s nine-dash line and the Indo-Pacific plan unveiled by the White House in February 2022. He listed a few South China Sea incidents and warned that similar occurrences could grow out of hand, resulting in armed confrontation, threatening peace and security for all in the region.

He spoke about the challenges due to lack of financial resources needed for infrastructure development which forces countries in the region to rely on China for funding their economic development. He also expressed concern over the increasing dependence of a large majority of the region’s nations on Chinese military equipment.

He concluded by speaking about the regional comprehensive economic partnership formed by 15 nations in the region alongwith China, including economically powerful nations and emerging economies like Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

View Recording on Youtube