{"id":71530,"date":"2025-11-01T16:13:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=71530"},"modified":"2025-11-06T10:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:27:11","slug":"ayni-air-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/ayni-air-base\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayni Air Base"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Ayni Air Base Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has rounded off its operation at the strategic Ayni Air Base in Tajikistan after helping it run since 2002. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Ayni Air Base<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is located in <\/span><b>Tajikistan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>first overseas military facility operated by India.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Located just <\/span><b>west of Dushanbe, the capital<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Tajikistan, the base had been a neglected Soviet-era facility before India stepped in to modernize it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>India began developing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Ayni airbase in the <\/span><b>early 2000s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> under an agreement with Tajikistan.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India invested close to $100 million in the development and modernization of the airbase.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>extended the runway <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to 3,200 metres and <\/span><b>upgraded facilities for refuelling, repairs, and hangars.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>At times, India even stationed around 200 personnel from the army and air force <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at the site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India temporarily <\/span><b>deployed Su-30MKI fighter jets and helicopters <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the base roughly a decade ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>India withdrew <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from the airbase<\/span><b> after<\/b> <b>a bilateral agreement<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on stationing Indian personnel at the location <\/span><b>ended in 2022<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Why the <\/b><b>Ayni Air Base<\/b><b>Mattered for India?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The base enabled India to <\/span><b>maintain contact with anti-Taliban forces before 2001<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and later provided a <\/span><b>route for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ayni\u2019s location gave India a unique advantage. The base is just about <\/span><b>20 kilometres from Afghanistan\u2019s Wakhan Corridor, which borders <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (<\/span><b>PoK<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From there, Indian forces could theoretically target key Pakistani cities such as Peshawar.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ayni served as a gateway for India to enhance its presence in Central Asia, a region traditionally dominated by Russia and increasingly influenced by China.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The airbase was also <\/span><b>used in 2021 to evacuate Indian nationals<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and officials <\/span><b>from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/explainers\/india-ayni-airbase-tajikistan-withdrawal-13946389.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FP<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ayni Air Base is the first overseas military facility operated by India. Read more about Ayni Air Base, Location, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":71534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3501,246,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-71530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-ayni-air-base","9":"tag-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-prelims-pointers","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}