The Indian Army is preparing for a series of bilateral exercises to carry out counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism drills along with the armies of the United States, Russia and China.
The U.S. Special Forces will be in India this August for the ‘Vajra Prahar' exercise to be held at Belgaum, Karnataka. Army officers said the special forces of both the countries will take part in simulated insurgency and terror strike scenario.
The exercise is part of the series of bilateral exercises that the armies of India and the United States have each year, with ‘Shatrujeet' and ‘Yudh Abhyas' being the other two. ‘Yudh Abhyas' was held in October 2009 at Babina district in Uttar Pradesh.
The second bilateral engagement will be with Russia during October to be held near Ranikhet, Uttarakhand.
The last in the series will be the ‘Hand-in-Hand' war game with China to be held there. India had hosted the Chinese Army for the exercise in December 2008 at Belgaum. The first edition was held in Kunming, China during 2007.
Though envisaged as an annual exercise, it could not be held last year and the Defence Ministry had indicated that it could be resumed in 2011. The matter came up for discussion during the visit of Defence Secretary to Beijing earlier this year.
