India and Australia will conduct the next round of Defence Ministers’ Dialogue next week in New Delhi.Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence of Australia, Richard Marles, will be travelling to New Delhi and hold talks with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, for what would be the ‘2nd Australia-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue’.The first edition of the dialogue was hosted by Australia in October last year.“This meeting reflects unprecedented progress in the bilateral defence partnership and a shared ambition to enhance cooperation,” a statement of the Australian Government said.Prior to coming to India, Marles will be in Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue.The Australian statement quoting Marles said: “Australia and India are top-tier security partners. I look forward to meeting with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to further strengthen our defence partnership following the strong progress we made during his visit to Australia last year.”The Defence Ministers are expected to focus heavily on Maritime Security and Domain Awareness.Just two days ago, on May 26, the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting in New Delhi announced the launch of the first ever Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration (IPMSC) initiative to leverage Quad country maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific, enhancing information sharing and maritime domain awareness capacity with an initial focus on the Indian Ocean Region as well as through subject matter expert exchanges and tabletop exercises. India and Australia are partners in Quad alongwith the US and Japan.Quad countries are developing a comprehensive Common Operating Picture (COP) and harnessing real-time information in Indo-Pacific maritime zones which will have benefits for the entire region, a statement had said on May 26.Also, sources said that India and Australia would look to enhance the complexity and frequency of bilateral exercises across all operational domains.India and Australia have a Mutual Logistic Support Arrangement (MLSA), which was signed in 2020 during the virtual summit between Australia’s former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The agreement facilitates sophisticated logistic cooperation, enabling increasingly complex military engagement and greater combined responsiveness to regional humanitarian disasters.India and Australia share a growing number of platforms, which is increasing opportunities for joint training and interoperability. These include C-17 strategic transport aircraft, C-130 tactical transport aircraft, Hawk fighter trainer aircraft, P-8 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, MH-60R Seahawk maritime helicopters and CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters.India and Australia have institutionalised their annual dialogue and underlines the rapid transformation of the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership into a ‘top-tier’ security alignment.