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| Sunday, 18 April 2004 |
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INS Tarangini on goodwill mission by JAYAMPATHY JAYASINGHE It is not often that you get an opportunity to board an Indian Naval sail ship docked at the Colombo harbour. 'Tarangini' is the name of the sail ship that belongs to the Indian Navy. Basically it is a ship that provides training facilities for officer cadets of the Indian Navy and other Navies around the world. The ship is on its last leg of her tour having called at sixteen countries in Asia and the Far East. Colombo was the 17th port before it sails back to Kochi. We were introduced to the Commanding Officer of 'Tarangini', Cdr., Mukul Asthana by Captain M. Gopinath, Defence Advisor of the Indian High Commission. Commander Asthana is an amiable personality who explained to the media minute details of the ship. He said the ship was on a goodwill mission having called at 37 ports in 17 countries. "We will be taking with us three officer cadets from Sri Lanka for further training." Asked whether ship carried any heavy arms, Commander Asthana said being a training vessel they only carry light arms. However when sailing from Malaysia they were on the lookout for pirate ships that haunts the South East Asian waters. Commander Asthana took over command of INS Tarangani at Suva, Fiji on 24th January 2004. He was commissioned on 26th July 1986 after obtaining Second mate (FG) certificate from the Merchant marine. He is an alumnus of the Navy Academy and a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. We were then introduced to the only two women officers Dr. Pradipta C. Handy, a Radiologist and Vijay Chaudhary, a training officer. Dr. Handy is married to a gastroenterologist from New Delhi. In fact both of them admitted that they enjoy their work thoroughly. Asked whether several Navy personnel fall sick during training, Dr. Handy said during training period some officers sustain injuries due to falls and others, due to sea sickness. The ship has a permeant crew of six officers and 30 sailors that maintain and sail the ship. |
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