India-France: UPSC Important Topic | 22 April 2023

India-France

∆Security and Defence Relations

✓Regular exchange of visits at the level of Services Chiefs takes place.

✓The three services also have regular defence exercises; viz. Exercise Shakti (Army); Exercise Varuna (Navy); Exercise Garuda (Air Force.

✓The Varuna exercise has been taking place since 1983.

✓Apart from service-level staff talks, the two sides have a High Committee on Defence Cooperation (HCDC) which meets annually at the level of Defence Secretary and the French Director General of the Directorate of International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS).

✓Apart from this, various staff courses, training programmes etc. also regularly take place.