12th Presidential Fleet Review: Indian Navy
President Ram Nath Kovind will take part in the Indian Navy’s 12th Presidential Fleet Review.
- President’s Fleet Review is the country’s President taking stock of the Navy’s capability.
- It takes place once under every President, who is the supreme commander of the armed forces.
- The President is taken on one of the Naval ships, which is called the President’s Yacht, to look at all the ships docked on one of the Naval ports.
- The President’s Yacht this year “is an indigenously built Naval Offshore Patrol Vessel, INS Sumitra, which will lead the Presidential Column.
- The yacht will be distinguished by the Ashoka Emblem on her side and will fly the President’s Standard on the Mast”.
- The idea is to showcase not all the Navy’s ships, but every type of ship — and the kind of capabilities it has at that time. The review also includes merchant ships.
- In the current fleet review, which will take place in Vishakhapatnam, Kovind will review over 60 ships and submarines, and 55 aircraft, from the Navy and the Coast Guard.
- There have been 11 President’s Fleet Reviews since Independence.
- The first was conducted in 1953, under Dr Rajendra Prasad. The next one was done not by the President but by the then Defence Minister, Y B Chavan, in 1964.
- Since then, it has been the President reviewing the fleet.
- The last one was done in 2016, under President Pranab Mukherjee.
- The reviews in 2001 and 2016 were International Fleet Reviews, in which some vessels from other countries also participated.
