Context: 

The Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Regional Coordination Operations Centre (RCOC), Seychelles.

More on News:

• The MoU aims to promote collaboration between the two centres towards enhancing maritime domain awareness, information sharing and expertise development. 
• It aims to counter non-traditional maritime security threats such as piracy, armed robbery, trafficking, IUU fishing, arms running, poaching, maritime terrorism.

About IFC-IOR:

• The IFC-IOR was inaugurated in 2018 within the premises of the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) in Gurugram. 
• The IMAC is the single-point centre linking all the coastal radar chains to generate a seamless real-time picture of the nearly 7,500-km coastline and several Indian Ocean littoral states have joined the coastal radar chain network since.
• Since inception, IFC-IOR has established linkages with several multinational maritime security centres. 
• The IFC-IOR aims to engage with partner nations to develop comprehensive maritime domain awareness and share information on vessels of interest (i.e., information on white shipping).
  • (White shipping information refers to exchange of advance information on the identity and movement of commercial non-military merchant vessels.)

• The centre also hosts International Liaison Officers (ILOs) from 12 countries — Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Maldives, Mauritius, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S. 

News Source: The Hindu

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