Nicobar Islands News

Over the past three years, P. Ravindran’s commute from his southern Indian village has been about more than getting to work - the SIM card seller sees his daily trip on India’s first solar-powered ferry as doing his bit for the green revolution.“I am proud to be a frequent traveler on the Aditya... I am being part of cleaning the Earth,” said Ravindran, who uses the boat most days to travel to the town of Vaikom on Lake Vembanad.The Aditya’s green credentials have attracted international…

The United States is conducting two military exercises in Asian waters this week involving allies Japan, Australia and India, the U.S. navy said on Tuesday.The exercises come as military rivalry between the United States and China is intensifying and days after the United States said China’s claims of sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea were illegal.The United States has long opposed China’s expansive territorial claims on the South China Sea, sending warships regularly through the strategic waterway to demonstrate freedom of navigation.China opposes such exercises and said the U.S.

German bulk carrier company Oldendorff Carriers  signed a Coal Transportation Agreement (CTA) with  Bangladesh Chinese Power Company limited(BCPCL).Oldendorff will provide a full transportation solution to BCPCL, which includes coal transportation from Indonesia or Australia with transshipment in Andaman & Nicobar to Payra power plant in Bangladesh.The coal transshipment will allow BCPCL to take advantage of lower freight costs using larger vessels to Andaman & Nicobar, and smaller vessels will deliver the cargo to BCPCL, due to draft restrictions at Payra port.Weather restrictions for transshipment in the Gulf of Bengal, due to northeast and southwest monsoons, make transshipment impossible for at least four months of the year.

INS Ranjit, a Rajput class destroyer ship in India, was decommissioned at a solemn yet grand ceremony at Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam culminating a glorious era on 06 May 19.The decommissioning ceremony was attended by officers and sailors of the commissioning crew as well as other who have been part of Ranjit’s voyage over the last 36 years.The Chief Guest for the Decommissioning ceremony was Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi PVSM AVSM YSM NM VSM ADC (Retd) Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, Andaman & Nicobar Islands who was also a part of the commissioning crew.The Commissioning Ceremony was graced by 16 officers and 10 sailors from the commissioning…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the 50 Mega Watt liquefied natural gas (LNG) based power project in south Andaman. The will take around 18 months to be operational.NTPC Limited’s wholly-owned subsidiary NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) will build the plant which is expected to improve the quality of life of the residents of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and boost the economic development.The plant shall be operational through Dual Fuel — LNG or HSD to be sourced from Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) and High Speed Diesel (HSD) to be sourced from Indian Oil Corporations (IOCL) existing depot at Andaman and Nicobar as per requirement…

ABB said it has signed a contract with India’s largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility, Cochin Shipyard Ltd, to deliver a first-ever integrated power and automation package to an Indian shipowner.ABB’s contract with Cochin Shipyard covers two new 1,200-passenger ferries, to be delivered to the Andaman & Nicobar Administration in 2020. In what’s said to be a first for a shipowner in India, these vessels will benefit from a full integration of their power generation, distribution and propulsion systems…

Taking ahead the bilateral relations between India & Republic of Indonesia, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Shipping met General (Retd.) Luhut Binser Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs of Indonesia, in New Delhi. Ahead of the visit of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Jakarta in May 2018, General (Retd.) Pandjaitan, who is on a 2-day visit to India met Shri Gadkari to discuss bilateral cooperation in the maritime sector between the two countries. The bilateral talks covered a wide range of topics including river rejuvenation, wastewater treatment, generating revenue streams from waste, enhancing shipping linkages between the two countries, developing ports and airports, training on light house technology and development of navigational aids.

Major ports in India handled 326.4 million tonnes of cargo in the April-September period, an increase of 3.24% over the 316.1 million tonnes they handled a year ago. According to the data released by the ministry of shipping, seven out of the 12 major ports in the country recorded traffic growth in the first half of the current fiscal. Seven Ports (Kolkata, Paradip, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mumbai and JNPT) registered positive growth in traffic during the period April to September 2017. Cargo traffic handled at Major Ports: The highest growth was registered by Cochin Port (19.62%), followed by Kolkata [incl. Haldia], New Mangalore, Paradip with growth of about  12% . Cochin Port growth was mainly due to increase in traffic of POL (27.8%) and Containers (10.3%).

Tourists stranded in Havelock in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands following the cancellation of ferry service that had developed a defect have been evacuated by the Indian Navy. Due to the disruption of scheduled ferry service on 17 September, two naval ships were deployed at Havelock Island to provide passage to tourists. 24 tourists were accommodated onboard the ships and brought to Port Blair late night. On 17 Sep, a message was received from Civil Administration that due to a defect in the hull, the return trip for tourists from Havelock by civil ferry MAKRUZZ had been cancelled. It was also intimated that a number of passengers, who had their flights scheduled for the morning of 18 Sep, were stranded and required to be brought to Port Blair.

Indian Navy commissioned LCU L52 - a landing craft - which will be deployed for a variety of activities including transporting battle tanks and other heavy weapons systems. "Dr. Jagdish Mukhi, Lieutenant Governor, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, commissioned IN LCU L52 into the Indian Navy on 21 August 2017 at Port Blair. IN LCU L52 is the second Landing Craft Utility (LCU) Mk-IV class to be inducted into the Indian Navy," said a press release from the Navy. The ship has been indigenously designed and built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata. The commissioning of L-52 is yet another manifestation of the potential of the country’s indigenous design and ship building capability.

Expansion, modernization and up-gradation of Major Ports in India is an ongoing process to keep the ports abreast with new technologies and also to promote trade and cargo. 62 Public–private partnership (PPP) Projects with an investment of Rs.49,049 crore ($7.1 bn) are under implementation and operation. For the year 2016-17, 33 projects with an investment of Rs.9,845 crore have been taken up. Port Master Plans for 12 major ports have been prepared keeping in view the requirements for cargo handling till 2035. A total of 142 Port Modernization projects have been identified in the Master Plans. These identified projects will be taken up for implementation in phases.

India's government has decided to build a submarine cable between the city of Chennai and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, which is  about 200km east of India, way out in the Bay of Bengal. The estimated cost of the project, which is Rs 1,102.38 crore ($164,5 million) includes operational expenses for 5 years, and is likely to be completed by December 2018. The project would allow the implementation of e-governance initiatives; establishment of enterprises and e-commerce facilities in the islands. As of now the telecom service in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (ANI) is dependent only on satellite connectivity and the bandwidth of which is limited to 1 GBPS only. “Lack of bandwidth and telecom connectivity is hampering socio-economic development of the islands.

The Ministry of Shipping has taken many proactive and progressive interventions in the areas of shipbuilding, port development, inland waterways and coastal shipping this year for the development of the maritime sector in the country. The key initiatives includes  Sagarmala Project, Special Purpose Vehicle to provide efficient last mile rail connectivity to Major Ports, Incentive for Shipbuilding and ship-repair Industry,  Jal Marg Vikas Project, Customs and Excise Duty Exempted on the Use of Bunker Fuels for coastal transportation of EXIM and empty container and for domestic containers transported alongwith EXIM and empty containers, Cabotage Relaxed for Special Vessels and Developing 78 lighthouses as tourism centers.

A Japanese tanker spilled about 4,365 tons of crude oil in the eastern Indian Ocean near the Nicobar islands following a collision with a cargo ship, the tanker's operator announced Tuesday. The spill is believed to be the largest involving Japanese-operated tankers, according a ship owner Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. The Bright Artemis tanker spilled the oil following a collision with the Amar, a smaller cargo ship, Mitsui O.S.K. said in a statement. It said the tanker had maneuvered near the Amar, which was in distress about 500 kilometres west of the Nicobars. Both ships are registered in Singapore. The exact amount of the spill was not clear, the announcement said. The tanker was carrying about 227,000 tons of crude.

India has inked a deal with the US defence and aerospace giant Boeing to procure four more Poseidon-8I (P-8I) long-range surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft ( submarine hunter planes) worth $1 billion. According to industry sources, the current deal is valued at around $1 billion, making it the biggest deal signed by the ministry so far in this financial year. The four aircraft will be delivered to the Navy within three years, sources said. With this deal, the total value of defence deals signed with the US in the last one decade comes to around $15 billion. The P-8I aircraft is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon aircraft that Boeing developed as a replacement for the US Navy’s ageing P-3 fleet and has been procured through a direct commercial sale.

Rolls-Royce has secured an £8-million contract to design and power a highly specialised buoy tender vessel for India. The vessel will be built at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd. in India, and is due for delivery in 2015, to operate in remote waters off the east coast of India and around the Andaman & Nicobar Islands maintaining and replacing navigational aids and buoys. The buoy tender vessel is a Rolls-Royce UT 755 S, which is a development of the well proven UT 755 series, and designed to operate safely in the most challenging conditions.

The Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) HMAS Childers has arrived in Darwin after participating in Milan 2014, the biannual international naval event hosted by the Indian Navy in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from February 5-9, 2014. Milan 2014 was designed to increase maritime cooperation, interoperability and mutual understanding among navies of the Indian Ocean region. Key activities included a sea passage exercise, an international maritime seminar on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)…

The Ministry of Shipping, along with the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) has drawn up an ambitious programme to develop 78 lighthouses in the country as centres of tourism in the first phase under Public Private Partnership (PPP). The identified lighthouses are in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The land adjacent to these lighthouses may have hotels, resorts, viewing galleries, maritime museums and heritage museums, adventure sports facilities, thematic restaurants, souvenir shops, LASER shows, spa & rejuvenation centers, amphitheaters and allied tourism facilities to attract the tourists, subject to viability and necessary clearances.