Indian Maritime Foundation 23rd Anniversary
Founded in 1993 by a group of Indian Navy and Merchant Navy Veterans, with the primary aim of promoting awareness of the oceans amongst the people, the IMF turned 23 this month. It has been a long and ardous journey, and most of the founder members still pull together, albeit that the average age of the council members has gone up from 63 to 81 years! 87 Issues of the Quarterly Journal and 1003 council meetings later, the IMF is still going strong and raring to achieve higher standards in 2017. More about our activities in a separate year-end post.
We celebrated the 23rd Anniversary at the Central Park Hotel in Pune, with Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, AVSM, VSM, ADC, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command as the Chief Guest and delivering the Anniversary Lecture. Admiral Luthra exemplifies the ‘Scholar-Sailor’ concept, with a brilliant career record right from his days as a Cadet, through various operational, staff and training assignments, to important and decision making Flag appointments; he has been the CinC of the Southern Naval Command prior to his current role as the Commander in Chief of the Sword Arm of the Navy. The title of his talk was, “Indian Navy: Strengthening Maritime Security and Stability”, which turned out to be a brilliant expose` on the current geostrategic scenario and changing geopolitical equations. The Indo-pacific concept and the pivot East policies were put across in a manner that the entire audience remained engaged right throughout. He took on the questions posed to him with consummate ease.
The opportunity was also taken to felicitate a young lady named Varsha Rajkhowa, who did the country proud by winning the “Miss Scuba International” title at an international pageant held in Malaysia in November 2016. This pageant has been held annually since 2011, and it is the first time that India was represented. All participants have to be qualified Scuba divers, and the aim of the contest is to spread awareness about the Marine Environment and how to prevent its destruction; which is very close at heart to all of us at the IMF. Varsha will be our flag bearer in the marine awareness campaign of the IMF.
The evening was rounded off with a delicious dinner after cutting the traditional anniversary pictures. The function was well attended.
