Context:

India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives revived their trilateral maritime security cooperation dialogue, for the first meeting of the group since 2014.

The key advances made in the meeting

• This is the fourth edition of the trilateral meeting, and the last one was held in 2014.
• Seychelles, Mauritius, and Bangladesh will be present as observers at Sri Lanka’s invitation.
• Intending to encourage meaningful maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean region, India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives discussed several areas for possible collaboration such as:
  • Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA)
  • Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)
  • Joint military exercises, capacity building, maritime security threats, marine pollution, and maritime underwater heritage.

The previous developments

• DOSTI (India-Maldives): Following the first trilateral meeting, the India–Maldives ‘DOSTI’ joint Coast Guard exercise in 2012 added Sri Lanka and was held as a trilateral exercise.
  • India–Maldives DOSTI exercises have been going on since 1991.
  • These are aimed at strengthening the capabilities of the three partners in the area of search and rescue operations, combating piracy and armed robbery, damage control, and casualty evacuation at sea.
• SLINEX (India-Sri Lanka): India and Sri Lanka also have held bilateral naval exercises called SLINEX since 2005.
  • The latest iteration, the eighth, was held off Trincomalee in Sri Lanka in October 2020.