Nomadic Elephant and Khaan Quest: the two exercises that carry India-Mongolia defence ties

Background

Exercise Nomadic Elephant is the bilateral joint military exercise of the Indian Army and the Mongolian Armed Forces.
Its seventeenth edition ran for two weeks and concluded in Ulaanbaatar, with Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Lieutenant General Pushpendra Singh attending the closing ceremony.
The Indian Army contingent numbered 45 personnel, drawn mainly from a battalion of the Arunachal Scouts.
The two armies operated as a combined task force in semi-conventional scenarios across semi-urban and mountainous terrain under a United Nations mandate.
Khaan Quest is the separate multinational peacekeeping exercise hosted by Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar, in which the Indian Army also takes part.
The Defence Secretary described Nomadic Elephant as a mark of friendship and mutual trust supporting regional peace and India's role in global peacekeeping.