New Delhi, April 5 -- Sixty years ago, in 1965, when Pakistan attacked India for the second time since its painful birth by British midwifery in 1947, the Indian government was downright 'sea-blind'. But in that war, Pakistan Navy launched Operation Dwarka, also known as Operation Somnath, which targeted the Indian coastal town of Dwarka, resulting in the only fatal casualty of a cow.

When Pakistan attacked India for the third time in December 1971, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave the Indian Navy's (IN) Chief, Admiral SM Nanda, who was itching to participate, the green signal to do so. Nanda, who had grown up near Karachi and knew it inside out, planned for the Indian Navy to launch Operations Trident and Python, which resulted in...