India’s maritime geography is rich: it has a 7,517-km-long coast line, where lie nine coastal states that are home to a number of ports that handle some 1,400 million tonnes of cargo ever year. [1] India being peninsular, its maritime linkages have historically involved trade, religion, and culture; these early associations, however, were severed over time. Especially after independence, the focus of India’s foreign outreach had become almost entirely continental. The liberalisation reforms of the 1990s can be regarded as an inflection point for India’s priorities: it accorded greater attention to port development and made its maritime position an important part of the national agenda. In more recent years, since 2014, the focus on maritime capacity development and outreach has grown manifold with national policies being dedicated to the development of the maritime sector.
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