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Such a ponderous title itself should be an indicator that the Indian Navy is grossly under-represented on the Indian screen. This reflects the real-life situation of the Navy in both the pre-independence, and post- independence era. The Navy could be said to truly 'blooded’ in the 1971 Indo-Pak war in a series of daring operations while also showing the perils, with the sinking of the INS Khukri . The Khukri episode would make a great film for all its drama, but then it’s ab

(Author’s Note. At the very outset I would like to state unambiguously that nothing in this article even remotely distracts from the splendid achievements of Op Trident or is to be construed, in any manner, as being disrespectful to those involved in Op Trident. My own writings, talks and social media posts, over many years, have consistently highlighted Op Trident and its significance. The only objective in this article is to bring out the many facets of Op Python which has

4 December is Navy Day, a day to commemorate Indian Navy’s stirring achievements in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, which the whole of India and the Indian Navy are currently celebrating with pomp and vigour across naval bases and towns. On this occasion, I want to shift focus a bit to pay tribute to an anonymous naval sailor and his small but not insignificant contribution to the Indo-Pak War of 1965. Dada was a sailor in the Indian Navy. I often dwelt over this little known (even un

The only reason this article has been long in the making is that I wanted it to become the first one I wrote for the website of the company that I was planning to set up and that took a while. In June this year, at the Navy veterans’ get-together, I met three remarkable women. Siblings all, they have amazing past and present which is rooted in the Navy and tells a wonderful story. I had heard of the Bakhshi sisters , here and there, from quite some time ago, but putting the p

This piece is inspired by an article written by Rear Admiral SY Shrikhande in an earlier issue of Naval Despatch about the inordinate time spent on Command Divisions in a naval station and his efforts to affect a change in thinking change such that the same (or better) results could have been obtained in lesser time if we were not held hostage to the mechanical aspects of parades, forgetting the initial impulses and objectives of any evolution. I feel that Action Messing is a

In the Navy, the phrase ‘November November Three’ (NN 3) is (or more correctly was ‘in our times’) the code to signal the completion of a serial, an exercise, an evolution or a training session. Used in flag hoists or over radio circuits where brevity is important, it had become, over a period of time, shorthand in naval parlance to indicate the success of a mission, completion of a task or fulfilment of an objective. It is a typically understated way of saying that ‘the work

Folks, Today, 01 Jul 2025, as the Indian Navy commissioned INS Tamal in Kaliningrad, Russia, it marked a moment that held much resonance for me and, possibly, for many of my contemporaries. Named after the sword of Indra – the King of Gods – Tamal has the distinction of being India’s last ‘imported ship’. The stealth frigate is equipped with the latest and best in terms of weapons and sensors but it may be the last that the Baltic coast of Russia (or any other coast in any ot