South Asia and Beyond

What Happened At The Seventh Indian Ocean Conference In Perth?

Nitin A. Gokhale
February 10, 2024 - 6:58 pm
1 minute read

Why is the Indian Ocean important and what makes the Indian Ocean conference so special that the seventh edition of the annual event which took place in Australia’s Perth on February 9 and 10 saw ministerial representations for 17 countries? External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar too was present. The theme of the conference this year was ‘Towards a Stable and Sustainable Indian Ocean’. But what were landlocked countries such as Bhutan and Nepal doing at the conference? In this episode of ‘Simply Nitin’, StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, who was in Perth for Indian Ocean Conference 2024, gives you an on-ground perspective.

Nitin A. Gokhale

Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests. Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space. One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals. Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences. Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.