PIB TrackerThe same two Indian ships ran two multilateral exercises at one port
INS Sahyadri and INS Kulish finished the ADMM-Plus activity at Subic Bay on 25 September and began the ASEAN-India exercise there on the 28th.
What happened
- The second edition of the ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise (AIME-2026) commenced at Subic Bay, Philippines, on 28 September 2026.
- INS Sahyadri and INS Kulish participate with maritime forces from ASEAN Member States, under the theme "Anchored in Trust, United at Sea".
- The same two ships concluded the 23rd ADMM-Plus Experts' Working Group on Maritime Security activity at the same port on 25 September.
- Opening ceremony attended by Harsh Kumar Jain, Ambassador of India to the Philippines, as Guest of Honour.
- Conducted under the Act East Policy and the vision of MAHASAGAR.
For Prelims
- AIME: the ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise, in its second edition. ADMM-Plus, by contrast, was in its 23rd Experts' Working Group activity - a new bilateral-bloc format running alongside long-established machinery.
- ADMM-Plus: the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus - ASEAN's ten members with eight partners including India. Its Experts' Working Groups are its operational layer, and the Maritime Security group is co-chaired by Japan.
- MAHASAGAR: Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions - the successor framing to SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), widening the frame from the Indian Ocean outward.
- Act East Policy: the successor to Look East, adding a security and connectivity dimension to what had been a trade engagement with Southeast Asia.
- Why Subic Bay: a former United States naval base in the Philippines, now a Philippine Navy facility - a port whose history makes it a deliberate venue for multilateral exercises in the South China Sea's approaches.
- The two ships: INS Sahyadri is a Shivalik-class stealth frigate; INS Kulish is a Kora-class missile corvette - one blue-water platform and one lighter escort.
- Harbour and Sea Phase: the standard two-part structure. The Harbour Phase builds procedure and relationships ashore; the Sea Phase tests whether they survive at sea.
- Read with the week: the Raksha Mantri told the Navy on 29 September that India is the First Responder and Preferred Security Partner in the Indian Ocean Region, and that 18 warships would be inducted in 2026.
For UPSC: The ASEAN relationship is examined every year and usually answered with policy names rather than evidence. Use this for the evidence: Act East and MAHASAGAR expressed as two exercises in one port in one week, the distinction between ADMM-Plus as an established multilateral mechanism and AIME as a new India-ASEAN format, and the deployment economics of sustaining presence far from home with two ships.
What it is NOT: The release names no participating ASEAN country or vessel, so an exercise described as bringing together ASEAN maritime forces lists none of them. It gives no numbers for ships, aircraft or personnel on any side. It does not say when the exercise concludes. It gives no content for the Sea Phase beyond "coordinated maritime exercises and operational serials", and no comparison with the first edition. And it does not mention the South China Sea at all, in a release about a multilateral naval exercise held on its approaches.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS2.18 · GS3.20 · Linkage L2
Anchor
INS Sahyadri and INS Kulish concluded their participation in the 23rd ADMM-Plus Maritime Security activity at Subic Bay on 25 September. On 28 September the same two ships began the second ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise at the same port. One frigate, one corvette, one harbour, two multilateral frameworks, three days apart. That is not a coincidence of scheduling; it is how a navy with finite hulls sustains presence seven thousand kilometres from home.
Substantiation (data)
AIME-2026 is the second edition, themed "Anchored in Trust, United at Sea", opened by India's Ambassador to the Philippines, Harsh Kumar Jain. It runs a Harbour Phase of Subject Matter Expert Exchanges, Operational Synchronisation, community engagement and cultural activity, followed by a Pre-Sail Brief and a Sea Phase of coordinated serials. The preceding ADMM-Plus activity at the same port was hosted by the Philippine Navy and co-chaired by Japan, and ran a Sea Phase of search and rescue, hydrographic survey, casualty evacuation and deck landing qualification.
Position
Running both in one deployment is efficient and strategically coherent. ADMM-Plus is ASEAN-wide machinery India participates in as one of eight partners; AIME is an India-ASEAN format in which India is one of two principals. Attending the first establishes India as a reliable contributor to regional architecture; hosting a bilateral-bloc exercise immediately after establishes it as a partner in its own right. The sequence says both things with the same two ships.
Counterpoint
Two ships is also the ceiling. The Raksha Mantri said a day earlier that Indian warships operate in the South China Sea, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and that eighteen will be commissioned this year - and the entire Indian contribution to two multilateral exercises in Southeast Asia is a frigate and a corvette, doing consecutive duty. Presence claimed across three oceans and delivered by back-to-back scheduling is presence with a thin margin.
Problematisation
The release never mentions the South China Sea. An exercise at Subic Bay - a former United States naval base on the approaches to the most contested water in Asia - is described entirely in the language of trust, interoperability and community engagement. That is a deliberate register, and it is the same one India chose for the Quad observer mission in September, which sailed on a Coast Guard ship rather than a warship. The choice is consistent; it is also the thing the document is least willing to state.
Conclusion
Read the deployment rather than the theme. India is building habit and procedure with ASEAN navies at the pace its hull count allows, in language carefully kept below the threshold of confrontation. Whether that converts into weight depends on the eighteen ships arriving this year reaching this ocean, not only this year's communiques.
Deploys into: Act East Policy and ASEAN maritime engagement · MAHASAGAR and the successor to SAGAR · Multilateral exercise architecture: ADMM-Plus against bloc formats · Deployment economics and sustained presence
Ministry of Defence · 2026-09-30 · PRID 2317206 · PIB source ↗