Through joint exercises, goodwill visits and humanitarian missions, including disaster relief, the Indian Navy promotes bilateral relations between nations.

[7][8] As of September 2022, the operational fleet consists of 2 active aircraft carriers and 1 amphibious transport dock, 4 landing ship tanks, 8 landing craft utility, 12 destroyers, 12 frigates, 2 ballistic missile submarines, 16 conventionally-powered attack submarines, 18 corvettes, one mine countermeasure vessel, 4 fleet tankers and numerous other auxiliary vessels, small patrol boats and sophisticated ships.

[11] A Kutch mariner's log book from 19th century recorded that the first tidal dock in India was built at Lothal around 2300 BC during the Indus Valley Civilisation, near the present-day harbor of Mangrol on the Gujarat coast.

At one instance Roman historian Gaius Plinius Secundus mentioned Indian traders carrying away large masses of gold and silver from Rome, in payment for skins, precious stones, clothes, indigo, sandalwood, herbs, perfumes, and spices.

[13][16] ... built of fir timber, having a sheath of boards laid over the planking in every part, caulked with oakum and fastened with iron nails.

[13] The origins of the current Indian Navy date to 1612, when an English vessel under the command of Captain Thomas Best defeated the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally.

Although the Portuguese were defeated, this incident along with the trouble caused by the pirates to the merchant vessels, forced the British to maintain fleet near Surat, Gujarat.

East India Company (HEIC) formed a naval arm, and the first squadron of fighting ships reached the Gujarat coast on 5 September 1612.

Also in 1928, the RIM was accorded combatant status, which entitled it to be considered a true fighting force and to fly the White Ensign of the Royal Navy.

The strike ultimately failed as the sailors did not receive substantial support from either the Indian Army or from political leaders in Congress or the Muslim League.

[57][58] On 4 December, the Indian Navy successfully executed Operation Trident, a devastating attack on the Pakistan Naval Headquarters of Karachi that sank a minesweeper, a destroyer and an ammunition supply ship.

[62] To demonstrate its solidarity as an ally of Pakistan, the United States sent Task Force 74 centred around the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal.

In retaliation, Soviet Navy submarines trailed the American task force, which moved away from the Indian Ocean towards Southeast Asia to avert a confrontation.

[70] In October 1999, the Navy along with the Indian Coast Guard rescued MV Alondra Rainbow, a pirated Japanese cargo ship.

It has been deployed for humanitarian relief in times of natural disasters and crises across the globe, as well as to keep India's maritime trade routes free and open.

[78] During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, the Indian Navy launched Operation Sukoon and evacuated 2,280 persons from 20 to 29 July 2006 including 436 Sri Lankans, 69 Nepalese and 7 Lebanese nationals from war-torn Lebanon.

[93] On 15 April 2016, a Poseidon-8I long-range patrol aircraft managed to thwart a piracy attack on the high seas by flying over MV Sezai Selaha, a merchant vessel, which was being targeted by a pirate mother ship and two skiffs around 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi) from Mumbai.

Apart from the two fleets, there is a Flotilla each, based at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair, that provide Local Naval Defence in their respective regions.

[111] Indian Navy has its operational and training bases in Gujarat, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Lakshadweep, Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The post is located directly across from Gwadar Port in Balochistan, Pakistan, separated by approximately 400 kilometres (250 mi) of the Arabian Sea.

[173] Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorshkov) is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier procured at a total cost $2.3 billion from Russia in December 2013.

[222] India has also fitted its Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft with all-weather, active-radar-homing, over-the-horizon AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles and Mk 54 All-Up-Round Lightweight Torpedoes.

GSAT-7 was fabricated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to serve for at least seven years in its orbital slot at 74°E, providing UHF, S-band, C-band and Ku-band relay capacity.

[284][285] Since the past decade, Indian naval ships have made goodwill port calls to Israel,[286][287] Turkey,[288] Egypt,[289] Greece,[290] Thailand,[291] Indonesia,[292] Australia,[293] New Zealand,[294] Tonga,[295] South Africa,[296] Kenya,[297] Qatar,[298] Oman,[299] United Arab Emirates,[300] Bahrain,[301] Kuwait,[302] and various other countries.

[307] The team next flew to eastern Greenland; in the Kulusuk and Angmassalik areas, they used Inuit boats to navigate the region's ice-choked fjords.

The six-member all-woman team circumnavigated and managed the whole operation in their first-ever global journey, with their ship INSV Tarini that lasted 254 days.

Phase II will involve expansion of the berthing facilities to accommodate 40–45 more front-line warships, including the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, raise manpower to 300 officers and around 2,500 sailors, and build a naval air station with a 6,000-foot runway.

This demonstration was part of Indian Navy's Swavalamban 2024 self reliance in technology contest to enable the development of autonomous vessels for various military applications.

[341] The new ensign is slated to be revealed by prime minister Narendra Modi on 2 September 2022, coinciding with the commissioning ceremony of INS Vikrant, the Indian Navy's first indigenously built aircraft carrier.

[343] Some themes are subtle such as the ongoing and future transition to a blue-water navy and others are louder such as the text related to nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.