Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Chief of the Naval Staff, arrived at Kochi on Wednesday for a two-day Southern Naval Command visit, his first extended review of the Command since Vice Adm Sameer Saxena took charge as its Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief last October. Vice Adm Saxena received the Naval Staff chief on arrival at Naval Base Kochi.

Inside the Southern Naval Command visit

Admiral Swaminathan was briefed on the Command's operational activities, training initiatives and what the Navy described only as key capability enhancement projects underway at Southern Naval Command. No individual programme was named.


A Command built around training

Southern Naval Command, headquartered at INS Venduruthy in Kochi, functions as the Indian Navy's principal training command and is the largest of the Navy's three area commands by geographic reach. It runs the bulk of the service's professional training establishments alongside its operational and administrative responsibilities for the western and southern coastline.

That dual role, part schoolhouse and part operational command, is why a visiting Naval Staff chief typically walks away with briefings that span classrooms as much as jetties.

Saxena's own path to Southern Naval Command

Vice Adm Saxena took over the Command on 31 October 2025 from Vice Adm V Srinivas, arriving after a tenure as Chief of Staff at Eastern Naval Command. He commanded the Western Fleet between December 2021 and November 2022 and has previously served as Naval Adviser at the High Commission of India in London.

A Navigation and Direction specialist

Commissioned in 1989, Saxena specialised in Navigation and Direction early in his career, a background shared by several officers who have gone on to head the Command.

Recent capability additions the visit follows

The Southern Naval Command visit lands a week after Operation Southern Readiness 26-2, a multinational maritime security exercise hosted by the Command, concluded at Kochi. It also comes days after Machilipatnam, the seventh Mahe class anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft, was launched at nearby Cochin Shipyard, one of a run of anti-submarine and training assets the Command has absorbed this year.

Admiral Swaminathan took charge as the 27th Chief of the Naval Staff in May, and Kochi has featured repeatedly in his public engagements since.

The visit's stated framing, that it reinforces the Navy's commitment to building an agile, adaptive and technically skilled force across the full spectrum of naval operations, echoes language the service has used at other command reviews this year.

More on the officers and assets involved: Admiral Krishna Swaminathan's appointment as CNS, the Command's own Operation Southern Readiness conclusion, and the Machilipatnam ASW SWC launch at Cochin Shipyard.

External reference: Indian Navy and the Ministry of Defence.