India to seek exclusion of its EEZ from war zone

KOCHI: India will make a fresh appeal before London-based Joint War Committee (JWC) for the exclusion of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from war zone notification. This was announced by Director-General of Shipping S B Agnihotri on Saturday. “There had been no piracy attacks in Indian waters over the last nine months. The Navy has sanitised our waters. This provides ample grounds to exclude Indian waters from the war zone,” he said. Even before the Enrica Lexie episode, India had taken up the issue before the JWC.  India will file the appeal before the next JWC meeting scheduled in May.The inclusion of Indian waters in the war zone has both commercial and strategic implications.As of now, merchant vessels have a tendency to hug the Indian territorial waters.  Once the Indian EEZ is excluded from the war zone, vessels will have to move to its outer boundary. As of now, the war zone extends into the Indian EEZ up to 78 degrees East. India wants it to be rolled back to 68 degrees East or at least enough to exclude the Indian EEZ. Union Shipping Secretary K Mohandas said there was a need to take a fresh look at our law framework in the context of piracy attack.