Underwater Domain Awareness in BIMSTEC: Towards a Sustainable Bay of Bengal
Ms. Divya Rai
Research intern at MRC
The recent shift to the Indo-Pacific region has far-reaching implications for regional and global politics and economies, and countries in the region will have to cope with complex geopolitical dynamics and reconcile economic possibilities and security concerns. The oceans are a vital part of the global ecosystem, and the need for resilient oceans has become especially necessary, in the face of climate change. Knowledge of the underwater domain becomes essential to the stability of the maritime system, to technological advances, and high-end and low-end economic cooperation for, both multilateral and bilateral. The Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) framework proposed by the Maritime Research Centre (MRC), seeks to address the requirement for policy and technology intervention, along with acoustic capacity and capability enhancement. With the world shifting its focus towards the maritime domain, particularly the Indian Ocean region, the Bay of Bengal assumes a strategic position. Knowledge of the domain is always the first step toward effective capacity and capacity development. The need for UDA in the Bay of Bengal is mostly driven by the importance of marine resources in the region and the need to protect these resources from potential threats and risks. Our future depends on healthy oceans around the world; maybe we must look at the subsea area separately from the surface marine activity.
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Ms. Divya Rai
Research intern at MRC
Divya Rai is the Program Executive and Researcher at the National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi, India. At the NMF she is conducting her research on East Asia. She is also undertaking research on the Underwater Domain Awareness framework in various multilateral structures in South Asia under the Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) Project Fellowship offered by the Maritime Research Centre (MRC). Before this, she was working as a Research Intern at the NMF and after her successful completion of the internship, she was promoted to the Programme Executive of the NMF. As a Research Intern, she focuses on the Indo-Pacific geostrategy of China & India’s maritime geostrategy. She has previously worked with reputable think tanks in India as a research intern and research associate. Her expertise lies in analyzing the need for the UDA framework in the BIMSTEC and India’s role in it, she has also worked on various issues related to South Asia such as regional and intra-regional connectivity, economic architecture, maritime security, environmental issues, and transport connectivity. She has published articles in reputed digital and print news platforms and magazines on issues about South Asia and the growing maritime influence of China in the Indo-Pacific, and geopolitics and non-traditional security threats in the South Asia region. She holds a Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Physics, Mathematics, and Defense and Strategic Studies from Allahabad University, Prayagraj.