India, Kazakhstan to hold military exercise in Meghalaya

• The armies of India and Kazakhstan will hold a two-week counter-terror exercise — KAZIND-22 — beginning on December 15 at Umroi in Meghalaya.

• The sixth edition of the joint training exercise will conclude on December 28.

• The annual training exercise was instituted in 2016 as exercise ‘Prabal Dostyk’ which was renamed as exercise KAZIND in 2018.

• Kazakh Army team comprising troops from its regional command will participate in the exercise.

• The aim of the exercise is to build positive military relations, imbibe each other’s best practices and promote the ability to operate together while undertaking counter-terrorist operations in semi-urban and jungle scenario.

• This joint exercise will enable the two armies to train, plan and execute a series of combined tactical drills for neutralising of likely threats that may be encountered in UN peacekeeping operations.

• The scope of this exercise involves a Command Post Exercise (CPX) at the battalion level and company level field training exercise (FTX) on sub-conventional operations.

• The exercise will enhance the level of defence cooperation between Indian Army and Kazakhstan Army which will further foster the bilateral relations between the two nations.

India-Kazakhstan relations

• India was one of the first countries to recognise the independence of Kazakhstan, which was on December 16, 1991. Diplomatic relations were established in February 1992.

• India and Kazakhstan have been strategic partners since 2009.

• Both countries actively cooperate under the aegis of multilateral fora including CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the UN organisations. India has been a consistent supporter of Kazakhstan’s initiative on CICA and is actively participating in the process.

• The India-Kazakhstan Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) established in 1993 is the apex bilateral institutional mechanism for developing trade, economic, scientific, technological, industrial and cultural cooperation between the two countries.

• Several Joint Working Groups (JWGs) have been established in areas including counter-terrorism, trade & economic cooperation, defence & military technical cooperation, information technology, hydrocarbons and textiles.

• The Indo-Kazakh Defence Cooperation is carried out under the framework of an agreement on ‘Defence and Military Technical cooperation’ signed in July 2015. The agreement includes various areas including conduct of joint training, exercises, military-technical cooperation and UN peacekeeping.

• Kazakhstan is India’s largest trade and investment partner in Central Asia.

• During 2021, bilateral trade was $2 billion and exports from Kazakhstan to India is $1625.7 million and exports from India is $377.6 million.

• Kazakhstan was one of the first countries with which India launched civil nuclear cooperation through a uranium purchase contract.

• India provides capacity building assistance to Kazakhstan in various specialised fields under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme sponsored by the ministry of external affairs.

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