It led to internet outages in parts of the Middle East and Asia, including India, shedding light on India’s  Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA).

• UDA refers to the capability of a nation or an organization to monitor, detect, and assess activities occurring beneath the surface of water bodies like oceans and seas.

Need for UDA in India

• National security and regional stability (eg China’s Underwater Great Wall project). 
• Protecting Critical Infrastructure: Such as submarine communication cables (which are fibre-optic cables), which transmit over 95% of global internet traffic.
  • Fibre optic cables transmit data as pulses of light through strands of glass or plastic fibres using the principle of total internal reflection. 

Challenges for India

• Technological Gaps: The development of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) is at an early stage.
  • DRDO’s phosphoric acid fuel cell-based Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system for submarines compares poorly to lithium-ion fuel cell-powered AIP.
  • Bharat Electronics Limited’s Unmanned surface vehicle (USV), designed for bathymetric surveys, has only a 30-kilogram payload capacity.
    • This results in import dependency for critical underwater equipment.
• Financial constraints: Lack of long-term support to startups hinders the prototype development 
• Operational Difficulties: Due to India's vast coastline, Chinese submarine incursions, seasonal monsoons, and fragmented inter-agency coordination.