A case for a pan-Indian Ocean information grid for improved maritime domain awareness

ABSTRACT

The Indian Ocean region, in recent years, has witnessed a proliferation of information centers which have emerged in response to various sub-regional requirements and sometimes representing diverse interest groups. This paper highlights the gaps in regional maritime domain awareness (MDA) and argues that the multiple disparate information systems have not contributed to improving overall maritime safety and security in the Indian Ocean region. It puts forward a case for a pan-Indian Ocean information grid that could integrate the various information sources to provide comprehensive MDA for the region.

KEYWORDS:

• Indian Ocean
• maritime domain awareness
• information center
• automatic identification system
• European maritime safety agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Shishir Upadhyaya is a former Indian naval intelligence officer and a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong.

Additional information

Funding

The upgrading of existing infrastructure, the use of private contractors to carry out regular aerial and ship surveillance missions by private contractors and the creation and maintenance of a pan-Indian Ocean information grid will obviously incur significant costs. Once again, instead of creating a new venture, the Special Fund under the IORA could be used for this purpose. The Special Fund was created in 2008, has been financed by contributions from all member states, dialogue partners and observers. The total fund corpus is presently limited, totaling over $2 million with India being the largest donor with a total contribution of $1,050,000, followed by the U.A.E. with a contribution of $500,000, and China with a total contribution of $200,000 (IORA, 2015). Many leading dialogue partners such as France, Japan, United States and the U.K. have evidently not contributed to the fund. So far, over six projects have been undertaken utilizing about $165,000 from the IORA Special Fund, covering areas such as tourism, fisheries, tsunami and science and technology. Clearly, limited funding has precluded planning for large-scale projects of strategic significance to the entire region. By opening the Special Fund to all stakeholders in the Indian Ocean including the user states, the maritime industry and even banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), created to fund the China’s ambitious ‘One Belt One Road’ project, a large corpus for undertaking various projects could be created. The Special Fund could be administered by the Regional Experts Group with various contributors being allowed as observers.