Armies of India and Australia held the ninth Army to Army Staff Talks in Dehradun on Wednesday which were focused on joint military exercises, training cooperation and preparing a roadmap for enhanced defence cooperation, the Army said in a statement.
Talks were held at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) and both sides reviewed the road map for activities promoting defence cooperation like training courses between both the Armies, cadet exchange programmes between pre-commission training academies, bilateral ex Austra hind, subject matter expert exchange in niche domains, functional and high level visits, interaction between think tanks, virtual interactions in field of medical and doctrinal exchanges, the Army said.
The Australian delegation is on a visit to India from June 25 to July 01.
The delegation also visited Infantry Division based at Dehradun, Bengal Engineer Group Centre Roorkee, Wargame Research and Development Centre, Delhi and Centre for Land Warfare Studies.
The two countries are set to commence the General Rawat Young Officer Exchange Programme in the latter half of 2022, which was announced during the virtual summit meeting between the Prime Ministers of the two countries on March 21, 2022.
There have been a series of high level exchanges between the two countries to further security cooperation. Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles were in India last week.
The India-Australia Joint Working Group (JWG) on Defence Research and Material Cooperation is slated to meet in Australia later this year. India is also set to participate in Australia’s Indo-Pacific Endeavour exercise and Exercise Pitch Black later this year.