India has inked the ascension agreement to the Trans Regional Maritime Network (T-RMN) which facilitates information exchange on the movement of commercial traffic on the high seas and will contribute to increased maritime domain awareness. Commodore KM Ramakrishnan signed the agreement on behalf of the Indian Navy at the Italian Naval Headquarters in Rome on Monday, the Navy said here in a twitter here on Tuesday.
The multilateral construct comprises of 30 countries and is steered by Italy. The information is available primarily through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) which are fitted on merchant ships with more than 300 Gross Registered Tonnage as mandated by the International Maritime Organisation.
The AIS information comprises name, MMSI number, position, course, speed, last port visited, destination and so on. This information can be picked up through various AIS sensors including coastal AIS chains and satellite based receivers.
Indian Navy is mandated to conclude white shipping information exchange agreements with 36 countries and three multi-national constructs, officials said here. Till date, 19 white shipping agreements have been signed of which 12 have been operationalised.
India has also set up a large network of coastal chain radars which track the m0vement of sea and ocean traffic. Such multilateral agreements are necessitated due to the large traffic in the Indian Ocean which cannot be entirely monitored by any one nation.
