Page 96 - Navy Journal 219

A SUGGESTED FRAMEWORK FOR IONS
MULTILATERAL COLLABORATIVE
MARITIME SEARCH AND RESCUE

Captain Mohammad Shafiul Azam, (N), NPP, psc, BN

Introduction
IONS is a maritime organization that has twenty three member navies and nine
observer navies in it. The very name suggests that it is a collaboration between
the littoral navies of the Indian Ocean. Since its birth in 2008, IONS came a long
way in terms of in-house activities like CNS conclave, essay competition,
exchange of views, research works and multilateral seminars. Keeping in view
the expected future of IONS, it may now be realized that to become a versatile
organization, it needs to have both in-house and field activities in materialization
of research works. Sea is the focus for all kinds of activities of IONS, where
navies are the key role players. Being a formidable force, navy is responsible to
maintain good order at sea which includes both coercive means and benign roles.
It may be maintain that, a good number of accidents take place each year in the
Indian Ocean which need collaborative actions in varying degrees by the navies.
IONS has all the potentialities to take up such activities in the Indian Ocean. As
a humble beginning towards the achievement of being a stronger organization,
MSAR (Maritime Search And Rescue) may be one such activity that aims to the
rescue of valuable lives, goods and carriers. This also contributes in prevention
of possibilities of marine pollution. Slowly and gradually, successful adoption of
asuitable MSAR framework would pave the way towards addressing all sorts of
maritime threats in the Indian Ocean through collaborative efforts by the IONS
littorals. In this regard a comprehensive and sustainable framework is required to
be contemplated which may be adopted by the IONS member countries.

Requirement of IONS Multilateral Collaborative MSAR

Indian Ocean is a place where about 52,000 ships ply almost each year and which
is increasing yet. Each of the ship traversing here belongs to one country where
the goods are brought from another and goes to some other destination. In
addition, the shipcrews belong to several countries from around the world.

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