Exercise Surya Kiran VIII Commences in Nepal

The Eighth India-Nepal Battalion level Combined Military Training named  Exercise Surya Kiran-VIII, commenced on 23 Feb 15 at Integrated Army Training Centre, Saljhandi, Nepal, with an impressive opening ceremony that saw the unfurling of the National Flags of both countries.             The Nepalese Contingent was represented by a Battalion from an Infantry Division of Nepalese Army while Indian side was represented by an equivalent strength from a Mountain Brigade.   Major General Padam Villas Karki of Nepalese army welcomed the Indian soldiers and urged both contingents to achieve optimum cohesion and interoperability to achieve military objectives of the exercise. He stressed upon importance of free exchange of ideas and concepts between the troops and the necessity to learn each other’s experiences.             The focus of the ongoing exercise is to carry out Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist Operations in mountainous and jungle terrain and to practice facets of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief including actions to be taken during Pandemic, Epidemic and various other humanitarian assistance situations. Aviation aspects and environmental conservation are also included in the scope of this exercise. The two week long exercise will see the contingents hone their tactical and technical skills in countering insurgency and terrorism. State of the art equipment for surveillance and tracking, specialist weapons for close quarter battle with terrorists, explosives and IED detectors, as well as the latest communication equipment are being fielded by both sides. Both sides will train, plan and execute a series of well developed combined tactical drills for neutralisation of likely threats that may be encountered in Counter Insurgency / Counter Terrorism operations.