Ships of the Indian Navy's First Training Squadron (1TS) — INS Tir, INS Sujata and Indian Coast Guard Ship Sarathi — departed Port Victoria, Seychelles, on 15 October 2026, having arrived on 12 October during an ongoing training deployment.
For a candidate preparing for the NDA, this is the most personally relevant item in a week of naval news. The First Training Squadron is where the officers these examinations produce actually learn their trade at sea.
What the First Training Squadron does
An officer is not made at an academy. The academy — the National Defence Academy, then the Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala — produces a commissioned officer with an education and a foundation of military training. What follows is the part that cannot be taught ashore: navigation with the real horizon, ship handling with real inertia, watchkeeping through real nights, seamanship on a deck that moves.
The First Training Squadron exists for that. It is a standing formation of ships dedicated to the sea training of officers under training, and its deployments are built around the training syllabus rather than around an operational task. When a cadet or a young officer learns to take a fix, to keep a bridge watch, or to handle a replenishment approach, it happens on these decks.
Two of the three ships are worth knowing:
- INS Tir is a purpose-built cadet training ship — designed from the outset for instruction, with classroom spaces and training positions built into the layout rather than retrofitted.
- INS Sujata is a Sukanya-class offshore patrol vessel employed in the training role. Large, long-legged and lightly armed, these ships suit extended deployments where endurance matters more than firepower.
The third is the interesting one. ICGS Sarathi is an Indian Coast Guard ship sailing as part of a Navy training squadron. That is a deliberate arrangement: officers who will spend their careers in two separate services learn the sea together, and the habits of joint operation form early rather than late.
What happened at Port Victoria
The port call, from 12 to 15 October, had four distinct components, and separating them is a useful exercise in reading defence diplomacy.
The protocol element. The Senior Officer of the First Training Squadron, with the Commanding Officers of the visiting ships, called on Maj Gen Michael Rosette, Chief of Defence Forces of the Seychelles Defence Force. Discussions covered the bilateral relationship between the two forces.
The training element. The visit included professional activities and cross-training visits, with firefighting and small-arms training provided to Seychelles Defence Force personnel. This is capacity building in its most literal form — skills transferred directly, at low cost, in a few days.
The operational element. The squadron conducted a PASSEX with Seychelles Coast Guard Ship Andromache, covering joint patrolling, communication drills and coordinated manoeuvres.
The outreach element. A medical camp, distribution of essential supplies at the Point La Rue elderly home, a visit by schoolchildren to the ships, and a performance by the Indian Navy Band.
That last category is often dismissed as decoration. It is not. The purpose of a port call is to be seen, and a navy band playing ashore reaches an audience that a staff conversation never will. Public goodwill is a durable asset in a small island state where a visiting warship is a national event.
PASSEX, defined precisely
A PASSEX — Passage Exercise — is a short exercise conducted between naval units when they happen to be in proximity, typically as one transits an area. It requires no long planning cycle, no formal exercise agreement and no large force.
What it establishes is basic: that two ships can communicate, manoeuvre in company and conduct simple coordinated activity. That sounds minimal, and the minimum is the point. A navy that has conducted a PASSEX with another has demonstrated a working floor of interoperability.
The distinction worth holding is between a PASSEX and a named bilateral exercise. A named exercise such as Konkan or Varuna is planned months ahead with defined objectives and a published programme. A PASSEX is opportunistic. The Indian Navy conducts a great many of them precisely because its ships are frequently deployed across the Indian Ocean, and each one adds a partner to the list of navies India can work with at short notice.
MAHASAGAR, and what it changed
The deployment is framed as being in line with the vision of MAHASAGAR — Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions.
The earlier formulation of India's maritime neighbourhood policy was SAGAR, Security and Growth for All in the Region. MAHASAGAR keeps the same two nouns — security and growth — and changes two things about them.
"All in the Region" becomes "Across Regions." The geographic ambition widens beyond the Indian Ocean littoral.
"For" becomes "Mutual and Holistic Advancement." The grammar of the older phrase had India providing security and growth to a region. The newer phrase is reciprocal. Whether that reflects a real change in practice or a change in presentation is a fair question for an essay, but the wording is deliberate and the shift from a provider framing to a partnership framing is the kind of nuance that distinguishes a good answer.
Seychelles sits in the Western Indian Ocean, astride approaches that matter for shipping between the Gulf, East Africa and the Indian peninsula. For an island state with a vast exclusive economic zone and a small defence force, maritime domain awareness and patrol capability are the central security problems — which is exactly what India offers in this relationship, through training, equipment and presence rather than through basing.
How this fits the month's pattern
Three strands of Indian maritime activity have been visible in October, and this is the quietest of them.
There has been coalition command, in the Navy's tenure leading the Combined Maritime Forces' training task force. There has been infrastructure, in the Karwar expansion under Project Seabird. And there has been platform induction, with the first Multi-Purpose Vessel commissioned.
A training squadron's port call produces no headline capability. What it produces is officers who have been to sea in the Indian Ocean and a partner navy that has worked with Indian ships. Both compound slowly, and neither can be bought in a hurry.
🔑 Revision block
- The deployment: First Training Squadron (1TS) — INS Tir, INS Sujata and ICGS Sarathi — at Port Victoria, Seychelles, 12 to 15 October 2026.
- The squadron's role: sea training of officers under training, after the academy stage. INS Tir is a purpose-built cadet training ship; INS Sujata is a Sukanya-class offshore patrol vessel in the training role; ICGS Sarathi is a Coast Guard ship sailing with a Navy squadron.
- Engagements: call on Maj Gen Michael Rosette, Chief of Defence Forces, Seychelles Defence Force; firefighting and small-arms training for SDF personnel; PASSEX with SCGS Andromache (joint patrolling, communication drills, coordinated manoeuvres); medical camp, supplies at the Point La Rue elderly home, schoolchildren's visit and a Navy Band performance.
- PASSEX: a short, opportunistic Passage Exercise establishing that two units can communicate, manoeuvre in company and coordinate — distinct from a planned, named bilateral exercise.
- MAHASAGAR: Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions, succeeding SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) — wider geography, reciprocal framing.
- Why Seychelles: a Western Indian Ocean island state with a large EEZ and a small defence force, where maritime domain awareness and patrol capacity are the central security needs.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The Indian Navy's First Training Squadron exists principally for: (a) sea training of officers under training (b) anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden (c) hydrographic survey of the Indian coast (d) submarine rescue operations
→ (a) Its deployments are built around the training syllabus rather than an operational task.
Q2. Which of the following sailed with the First Training Squadron to Seychelles? (a) INS Vikrant (b) INS Trishul (c) ICGS Sarathi (d) INS Samarthak
→ (c) INS Tir and INS Sujata sailed with Indian Coast Guard Ship Sarathi.
Q3. A PASSEX is best described as: (a) a multinational exercise planned a year in advance (b) a short, opportunistic exercise between units in proximity (c) the passage of a warship through a foreign exclusive economic zone (d) a formal transfer of a vessel between two navies
→ (b) It requires no long planning cycle and demonstrates a working floor of interoperability.
Q4. MAHASAGAR stands for: (a) Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions (b) Maritime Assistance for Security and Growth in the Region (c) Maritime Highway and Shipping Agreement for Regions (d) Mutual Assistance for Sea Area Governance and Response
→ (a) It succeeds SAGAR — Security and Growth for All in the Region.
Q5. INS Sujata belongs to which class of vessel? (a) Talwar class (b) Kamorta class (c) Shivalik class (d) Sukanya class
→ (d) Sukanya-class offshore patrol vessels are large and long-legged, which suits extended training deployments.
Q6. Seychelles is located in which part of the Indian Ocean? (a) Eastern Indian Ocean, near the Malacca approaches (b) Western Indian Ocean (c) Southern Ocean, near the Antarctic convergence (d) Northern Bay of Bengal
→ (b) It lies in the Western Indian Ocean, astride shipping approaches between the Gulf, East Africa and the Indian peninsula.
Q7. The principal change from SAGAR to MAHASAGAR in wording is: (a) the removal of any reference to growth (b) the replacement of security with sustainability (c) a shift from providing security and growth "for all in the region" to mutual advancement "across regions" (d) the exclusion of island states from the framework
→ (c) The geography widens and the framing becomes reciprocal rather than provider-to-recipient.
Q8. Firefighting and small-arms training provided to Seychelles Defence Force personnel is an example of: (a) capacity building (b) coercive diplomacy (c) forward basing (d) collective defence under a treaty
→ (a) Skills are transferred directly at low cost, which is the characteristic form of Indian defence engagement with small littoral states.
Q9. The Indian Naval Academy, where naval officers are trained after the academy stage begins, is located at: (a) Khadakwasla (b) Ezhimala (c) Dundigal (d) Chennai
→ (b) The Indian Naval Academy is at Ezhimala in Kerala. Khadakwasla is the NDA and Dundigal the Air Force Academy.
Q10. The inclusion of an Indian Coast Guard ship in a Navy training squadron principally serves to: (a) increase the squadron's firepower (b) provide medical evacuation capability (c) satisfy an international legal requirement (d) build habits of joint operation between the two services early in officers' careers
→ (d) Officers who will serve in two separate services train together at sea from the start.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Naval training and maritime diplomacy appear in the NDA General Ability paper in forms that reward precise vocabulary.
The first is the acronym question, and MAHASAGAR is current enough to be a likely setting. It is also the kind of acronym candidates half-remember, so the full expansion — Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions — is worth writing out until it sticks. Pair it with SAGAR and know which came first.
The second is the PASSEX question. Candidates routinely confuse a Passage Exercise with a named bilateral exercise. The discriminator is planning: opportunistic and short against planned and programmed.
The third is the academy-location question, a perennial. Khadakwasla for the NDA, Ezhimala for the Indian Naval Academy, Dundigal for the Air Force Academy, Dehradun for the IMA, Chennai for the OTA. These rotate through the paper constantly.
The fourth is the ship-class question — Sukanya class for INS Sujata, and the identification of INS Tir as a dedicated training ship. Training ships are less often revised than frontline combatants, which is exactly why they get asked.
For a written answer on India's maritime neighbourhood policy, the sentence worth constructing is about the form of engagement. India's offer to small island states in the Indian Ocean is training, equipment and presence rather than basing — a model that costs little, carries no treaty obligation, and builds the familiarity that matters in a crisis. Add the wording shift from SAGAR's provider framing to MAHASAGAR's reciprocal one, and note honestly that it remains to be demonstrated in practice, and the answer is doing assessment rather than recitation.
Preparing for NDA? Maritime diplomacy questions turn on vocabulary — PASSEX, interoperability, capacity building and the academy locations. Build the base with our NDA study material, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and train with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col Vijyanat Thakur — Defence Studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.