India is a peninsular nation with a coastline spanning 11,098 km across nine coastal states and four union territories. The Indian coastal region is crucial for global trade, handling 70% of the world’s container traffic and major energy trade routes. It holds significant resources like seabed minerals and ocean energy, contributing to the blue economy through marine shipping, tourism, aquaculture, and biotechnology.

The region’s development potential includes fisheries, renewable energy, seaports, shipping, and seabed mining, essential for employment, food security, and poverty alleviation. The region faces several traditional and non-traditional security challenges. The region is a geopolitical battleground for major powers in the world.

Even though multilateral cooperation plays a crucial role, it faces challenges due to regional rivalries. Apart from this, non-traditional challenges in the Indian coastal region include threats to the fisheries sector, environmental issues from mineral extraction, and risks to data cables. The fisheries sector faces illegal fishing, climate change impacts, and poor governance. Climate change is altering monsoon patterns and increasing cyclones, affecting agriculture and coastal communities.

Project Objectives

1. To broaden the scope of the ocean-led economy by amassing the research findings of coastal think tanks and research institutions in India.
2. To provide an institutional framework for setting the research agenda for the coastal think tanks and research institutions. 
3. To identify the opportunities and challenges arising in the Indian coastal region.
4. To help government, security agencies, communities, and organisations by sharing the information, expertise, and resource findings of the research and the conference. 
5. To conduct evidence-based research among the relevant stakeholders to understand the issues related to coastal states in terms of national security, socio-economic development aspects, etc.
6. To set up a road map for initiating people-to-people interaction platforms between the neighbouring countries for the redressal of maritime issues through open dialogues.