It has been a few weeks since two ships, RFA Argus and RFA Lyme Bay of the UK’s Littoral Response Group - South (LRG-S), arrived in Chennai last month, on their first engagement of its deployment to the Indian Pacific region. The ships are undergoing maintenance in the Larsen and Toubro shipyard at Kattupalli, near Chennai.
It was only in March 2023 that the UK’s HMS Tamar made a port call in Chennai. The regular visits of UK ships are increasing the prominence of Chennai in the ‘Roadmap 2030 for India-UK future relations’, that was launched in 2021.
As the 2030 vision aims for an “enhanced defence and security cooperation that brings a more secure Indian Ocean Region and Indo-Pacific”, the south Indian city on the eastern coast is only among the natural choices for port call.
