India–Seychelles relations are bilateral relations between the

Republic of India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and the

Republic of Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

. India has a High Commission in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

while Seychelles maintains a High Commission in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the NCT Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati B ...

History

Diplomatic ties between India and Seychelles have existed since Seychelles gained independence in 1976. A resident high commissioner of India has been in Victoria since 1987 while Seychelles opened its resident mission in New Delhi in 2008. Relations between the two countries have been warm and cordial with regular high level exchange visits between the countries. From India,

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Indira Gandhi and

Presidents President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

R Venkataraman Ramaswamy Venkataraman (, 4 December 191027 January 2009) was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist and politician who served as a Union Minister and as the eighth president of India. Venkataraman was born in Rajamadam village in Tan ...

and

Pratibha Patil Prathibha DeviSingh Patil (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th president of India spanning from 2007 to 2012. She is the first woman to become the president of India. A member of the Indian National ...

have visited the Seychelles, while

France Albert Rene France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

James Alix Michel James Alix Michel, GCSK (born August 16, 1944) is a Seychellois politician and the former President of Seychelles from year 2004 to 2016. He previously served as Vice-President under his predecessor, France-Albert René, from 1996 to 2004. Mi ...

and

Danny Faure Danny Faure (born 8 May 1962) is a Seychellois politician who was President of Seychelles from 16 October 2016 until 26 October 2020. Previously, he served as Vice President of Seychelles from 2010 to 2016. Faure is a member of the United Seychell ...

of Seychelles have paid state visits to India. India and Seychelles have broad based relations that cover a host of sectors including defence, culture, trade and technical cooperation. According to the Ministry of External Affairs of the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

, relations between India and Seychelles have been characterised by "close friendship, understanding and cooperation", while Seychelles has described itself as a "rock of dependability for India in the Indian Ocean region”.

Economic Relations

Seychelles President James Michel shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Seychelles

Trade between India and Seychelles amounted to only US$40 million in 2010–11 with the

balance of trade The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance ...

heavily in India's favour.

Tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques ...

petroleum exploration Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology. Exploration methods Visi ...

, communications and IT,

computer education A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These program ...

and

pharmaceuticals A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

have been identified as areas of economic cooperation between the two countries. India and Seychelles signed a bilateral investment promotion agreement in 2010 and in 2012, during President Pratibha Patil's visit to Seychelles, India extended it a $50 million

line of credit A line of credit is a credit facility extended by a bank or other financial institution to a government, business or individual customer that enables the customer to draw on the facility when the customer needs funds. A line of credit takes se ...

and a grant of $25 million. Among India's private sector companies, telecom major

Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (Trade name, d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as w ...

has a significant presence in Seychelles, having acquired Telecom Seychelles and partnered in the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the histori ...

submarine cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

project.

Defence Cooperation

Ceremony to transfer INS Tarasa to Seychelles (2)

India and Seychelles have a close defence ties. Seychelles is of strategic importance to India as it lies close to global lanes of shipping and commerce and is an important base in the fight against seaborne terrorism and piracy in the Indian Ocean Region. In June 1986, the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

deployed the at the Seychelles Port of Victoria to abort an attempted coup against President Rene by Defence Minister Berlouis in what was called

Operation Flowers are Blooming Operation Flowers are Blooming was the name of an operation by the Indian Navy to help avert a threatened coup against the government of President France-Albert René in the Seychelles in 1986. During the 1980s there were several coup attempts ag ...

. India helped avert a further attempted coup by Berlouis in September 1986, when Indian Prime Minister

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to bec ...

lent President René his plane so that he could fly back from an international meeting in

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its ...

to the Seychelles. President René reportedly took shelter in the resident of the Indian High Commissioner in

Male Male (Mars symbol, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot sexual reproduction, repro ...

. In 2009, India acted upon a request of the Seychelles and dispatched

naval ships A naval ship is a military ship (or sometimes boat, depending on classification) used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are Damage control, damage resilient a ...

to patrol the exclusive economic zone of Seychelles and to guard it against piracy. India has provided Seychelles with monetary support and equipment such as

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin- turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In ...

s and Chetak helicopters for meeting its defence needs besides deputing officers from the

Indian armed forces The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by ...

in Seychelles and helping in capacity building of the Seychelles' armed forces. Various

ships have visited Seychelles as part of their anti-piracy deployment and protection of Seychelles EEZ, including in February 2005, in March 2011, from 4 to 6 June 2011 and from 17 to 19 June, 2011 and , which visited Port Victoria on 7 November 2011 and conducted hydrographic survey of

Aldabra Aldabra is the world's second-largest coral atoll, lying south-east of the continent of Africa. It is part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, with a distance of 1,120 k ...

. The Seychelles government has leased the

Assumption Island Assumption Island is a small island in the Outer Islands of Seychelles north of Madagascar, south-west of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. In 2018, Seychelles and India signed an agreement to build and operate a joint military facilit ...

to the

to build an overseas base of operations there. The

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four ...

is helping to renovate the airfield while the navy has taken permission from the Seychelles government to make a new deep sea port by dredging sand for the same instead of using the ruined, old jetty which is already present. The residents of the island were relocated to another island by the help of

Indian Government The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. Seychelles maritime security advisor is also an Indian naval officer. In June 2018, Indian Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

announced that India was extending Seychelles a US$100 million credit to develop its defence capabilities.

Technical Cooperation

India has been working on

human resource development Training and development involve improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness via organized instruction, while dev ...

and capacity building with the

Government of Seychelles The politics of Seychelles have historical roots in both one-party socialism and autocratic rule. Following independence from the United Kingdom in 1976, Seychelles was a sovereign republic until 1977, when the original President and leader of t ...

under the

Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) is a bilateral assistance programme run by the Government of India. It is a demand-driven, response-oriented programme that focuses on addressing the needs of developing countries through in ...

since the early 1980s. India is a medical tourism destination for the

Seychellois This article is about the demographic features of the population of Seychelles, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. About 9 ...

and the Government of Seychelles has tied up with

MIOT Hospital The Madras Institute of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, known in short as the MIOT International Hospital, is a multi-specialty hospital in Manapakkam, Chennai, India. It is a specialty hospital in the field of joint replacement surgeries, Interv ...

s and

Madras Medical Mission The Madras Medical Mission is a hospital located in Chennai. The first unit of the hospital was set up in 1987. The hospital houses 300 beds including 76 intensive care beds. See also * Healthcare in Chennai * Medical missions Medical mis ...

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of ...

for providing healthcare to its citizens. The two nations have also been working together in the areas of environment protection and renewable energy and India is to set up a solar power cluster in Seychelles. Seychelles is also promoting itself as a

tourist destination A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural b ...

in India although Indian tourists numbered only 8200 in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:India-Seychelles relations

Bilateral relations of Seychelles

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...