Admiral G Ashok Kumar Takes over As First National Maritime Security Coordinator
Former Navy vice chief G Ashok Kumar has been appointed as the first National Maritime Security Coordinator (NMSC) in the National Security Council Secretariat
Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar, the recently retired Vice Chief of Naval Staff has been appointed as the first National Maritime Security Advisor of India. He is an alumnus of Sainik School, Amravathi Nagar and National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, Pune. He was commissioned into the executive branch of the Indian Navy on July 1, 1982.
Deficiencies in Coastal Security and its grave implication on National Security was highlighted when the 26/11 terrorist attack took place on Mumbai. Piracy, illegal and irregular immigration, drug trafficking, smuggling, terrorist infiltration need proper combating.
Protecting one’s own coastline is also becoming increasingly challenging. The Indian Navy needs to monitors traffic around it’s bases, together with Coast Guard and Customs it needs to strengthen surveillance of the Coastal Waters, Vulnerable Shore establishments, Cities, towns and even the Islands. The over all Coastal surveillance thus thus need state of the art, reliable sensors that operate in all weather conditions. The overall requirements are as under :
*Integration and coordination of over 15 Central and State Agencies looking after Coastal defence, policing and Security.
*Integration of monitoring of all vessel traffic with proper software
*long range identification of all shipping traffic
* Development and full coordination of all civil and military Coastal Surveillance radars with proper integration and fusion.
* friend and foe / stranger identification of all vessel traffic
* detection and tracking if even small boats and swimmers
Thus finally action has been taken on this after more than 12 years by appointing Admiral G Ashok Kumar. He has held various challenging staff and command assignments during his distinguished career in the Navy for over three decades. He has been the Commanding Officer of INS Kulish and INS Ranvir and Executive Officer onboard INS Brahmaputra.
Among his shore tenures, the important ones include Staff Officer (Ops/ND) at the Indian Naval Work-up team, Head of the Training Team (Navy) at Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and as Defence Advisor at the High Commission of India in Singapore and the Chief Staff Officer (Operations) of the Western Naval Command. On promotion to Flag rank, he held the important assignments of Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST), Chief of Staff (COS) of Southern Naval Command and Flag Officer Maharashtra and Gujarat (FOMAG).
In the rank of Vice-Admiral, he was the Commandant of the National Defence Academy and the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff. He is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and has attended the Army Higher Command Course at Mhow as well as the Expeditionary Operations Course at Quantico, Virginia, USA.
Though more details are not available, he will be reporting to the National Security Advisor and also interacting with the HQ IDS and the Naval HQ. The status of his office is likely to be higher than the Deputy National Security Advisors.
