Operation Southern Readiness concludes at Southern Naval Command, Kochi, on 23 July 2026, closing a four day multinational maritime security training engagement that brought together 276 personnel from 27 countries. The Indian Navy ran it in partnership with the Combined Maritime Forces, under the aegis of Southern Naval Command and the Indian Navy led Combined Task Force 154.

Seventy six facilitators and subject matter experts supported the four days, with four international organisations taking part.

Operation Southern Readiness concludes its first Indian edition

Earlier editions of Southern Readiness were run out of the Seychelles. Bringing the 26-2 iteration to Kochi made it the maiden conduct of the engagement on Indian soil, and it followed the Indian Navy taking command of CTF 154 at CMF headquarters in Manama in February 2026.

CTF 154 is the dedicated training task force of the Combined Maritime Forces, a naval partnership of more than 40 nations covering some of the busiest shipping lanes anywhere. Its remit is capacity building rather than combat. The task force was raised in May 2023, is one of five CMF task forces, and rotates command between partner navies. Everything that happened at Kochi over the four days sat inside that mandate, which is why the word exercise fits the engagement poorly. Nobody was manoeuvring against anybody.

The engagement opened on 20 July.


The inauguration and the closing ceremony

Rear Adm Deepak Singhal, Chief Staff Officer (Training) at Headquarters Southern Naval Command, inaugurated the engagement on 20 July. Cdre Dan Thomas of the Royal Navy, Deputy Commander Combined Maritime Forces, was present, along with senior officers and representatives of the participating nations. Official coverage of the opening placed the engagement as the first conduct of Southern Readiness in India.

The closing on 23 July was the shorter affair. Cdre Milind M Mokashi, Commander CTF 154, gave the closing address, certificates were presented to the facilitators, and Rear Adm Deepak Singhal delivered the valedictory address.


What the syllabus covered

Sessions ran across Maritime Domain Awareness and Information Sharing, Maritime Law, Counter Narcotics, Force Protection Measures, Asymmetric Threats, Maritime Uncrewed Systems and Operational Sea Training. Maritime security, legal and operational perspectives were taken together rather than kept in separate silos, and delivered through professional discussions, simulator based instruction and practical training.

Uncrewed systems on a maritime security syllabus is where the subject has moved. Cheap surface and aerial platforms have turned up often enough in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that partner navies now expect the topic on the timetable.

Who taught what at Kochi

The domain specific inputs came from three directions. On the Indian Navy side, the Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region, the Gurugram hub that tracks merchant traffic and distress reporting across the wider ocean. On the CMF side, the Joint Maritime Information Center at Manama. From outside both, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the IMO International Maritime Law Institute.

Practical training and time at sea

Participants worked through Damage Control and Firefighting, maritime communications, Survival at Sea and boarding procedures. Sea training was conducted onboard an Indian naval ship.

Those are the drills that decide whether a boarding party gets home. Every navy teaches them. Running them for twenty seven navies inside one week is a scheduling exercise as much as an instructional one.

Kochi was picked because the plant is there. Southern Naval Command is the Navy's training command, and its simulator estate at Kochi is what the service puts in front of visiting delegations. The MH-60R Seahawk handover earlier this month was run out of the same base.

The count at the end

Operation Southern Readiness concludes with 3,800 training man hours logged across the four days, which is the figure the Navy has put on the engagement. Its assessment is that the four days strengthened interoperability, professional networks and operational confidence among the participating nations, and added to regional capacity building and collective maritime security.

The four days also served as a shop window for the Navy's training infrastructure, its simulators and its instructional methods, and for Southern Naval Command's standing as a destination for foreign professional training.