The 13th edition of the Sri Lanka–India naval exercise SLINEX-26 concluded in Visakhapatnam, India, on 21 September, the Sri Lanka Navy announced. The exercise ran under the operational supervision of the Indian Navy’s Eastern Naval Command.
What each navy sent
Sri Lanka deployed a single vessel, the Offshore Patrol Vessel SLNS Sindurala. India was represented by two: the anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kavaratti and the fleet tanker INS Jyoti.
The asymmetry is worth noting. A tanker and an ASW corvette are specialist platforms; an OPV is a general-purpose patrol ship. The drills the two navies ran together were therefore shaped around what a patrol vessel can contribute.
Two phases
The exercise was split between harbour and sea.
The harbour phase, in Visakhapatnam, was largely professional and social — crew interactions, cross-deck ship visits, subject matter expert exchanges and sporting activities.
The sea phase, off India’s eastern coast, was the operational half. Both navies list four activities: live surface firing, tactical manoeuvring, anti-piracy response operations and cross-deck helicopter manoeuvres.
Cross-deck helicopter work — landing one navy’s aircraft on the other’s deck — is the most demanding item on that list, and the clearest test of the interoperability the exercise exists to build.
The stated purpose
The Navy framed the result in sea-lane terms, saying the exercise “underlines the shared commitment of both nations to maintain a safe, peaceful, and stable maritime environment and ensure the security of vital sea lanes in the Indian Ocean region.”
SLINEX is one of several recurring bilateral naval activities between the two countries. The fourth joint diving exercise, DIVEX 2026, was held off Colombo in April, and the two governments signed three defence agreements earlier this month.
A note on sourcing
The Daily Mirror’s report is a close rewrite of the Navy’s own release, published the same day. The two texts agree on every fact because they are the same text. This is effectively a single-source story — no Sri Lankan newsroom appears to have reported independently from Visakhapatnam.
Not reported
Neither source gives the exercise’s start date or total duration, the number of personnel involved, or which aircraft flew the cross-deck serials. Neither says what was fired at during the live surface firing, nor whether any third country observed.
There is no Sri Lankan statement of what the Navy took from the exercise operationally, and no indication of when or where SLINEX-27 will be held — or whether the next edition returns to Sri Lankan waters, as the exercise alternates between the two countries.
