Q 12. Despite coordinated efforts to protect ships, pirates still strike and hijack it. Some experts argue that getting all the countries under one unified command would greatly improve the efficiency of international counter piracy activities. What is t

Ans. Efforts of international navies have been quite effective in bringing down the success rates of piracy. Action by navies has denied freedom of operations to the pirates and has deterred and dissuaded them from carrying out attacks in areas where navies are currently deployed. It needs to be highlighted that naval deployments and command and task organisations for them are in accordance with their respective national mandates.

A unified command approach to anti piracy deployments would be useful in further improving the efficiency of ongoing naval operations. India would prefer to operate under an “UN construct” for such unified operations. However, even in the absence of a formal unified structure, cooperation between navies for coordinating anti piracy operations has been excellent.