In a world where major battles are fought on social media, looks like the Indian Navy has just scored a victory sorts over arch-rival China Navy.
The Indian Navy on Tuesday extended a ‘warm welcome’ to its Chinese counterpart in the Indian Ocean with a ‘happy hunting tweet’.
The tweet comes at a time when the Indian Air Force is undertaking the biggest military exercise in three decades - Gagan Shakti 2018.
The Indian Navy’s official Twitter handle tagged Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian Coast Guard, the Indian Army as well as the Indian Air Force too.
‘#MaritimeDomainAwareness @indiannavy extends a warm welcome to the 29th Anti-Piracy Escort Force (APEF) of PLA(N) in Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Happy Hunting @SpokespersonMoD @DefenceMinIndia @IAF_MCC @adgpi @IndiaCoastGuard @IndianDiplomacy (sic),’ the Indian Navy tweeted.
In another tweet, the Indian Navy also added the map showing the mission based deployments ‘from Persian Gulf to Malacca Straits & from Northern Bay of Bengal to Southern Indian Ocean to East coast of Africa’.
It also added that there are 50 ships on the vigil ‘24X7’. The cheeky parting shot – Indian Navy - Anytime, Anywhere Everytime just took the cake!
Meanwhile, Beijing has begun its 5-day-long mega military drill in the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
The exercises are taking place off the southeastern Chinese city of Quanzhou, in between two groups of islands close to China's coast but that Taiwan has controlled since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war.
Chinese state media has said the drills are a direct response to "provocations" by Taiwanese leaders related to what China fears are moves to push for the island's formal independence.
Chinese state television said the exercises would start at 8 a.m. (0000GMT) and last until midnight, but did not immediately provide any other details.
