How does India's role as an RSMC for the North Indian Ocean serve both its disaster-management and its neighbourhood diplomacy goals?

On 1 July 1988, the WMO designated the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) New Delhi centre as a Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (RSMC) – Tropical Cyclones. It watches the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea round the clock and advises the WMO/ESCAP Panel countries [1]. Through this role, one scientific capability does two jobs: it protects India's coast and builds trust with its neighbours.

Serving disaster-management goals

• Continuous watch: cyclone advisories go out 8 times a day, along with storm-surge advisories [1].
• Better accuracy: an in-house Decision Support System (DSS) helped improve track forecasts by 20–25% and landfall/intensity forecasts by 35–45% in 2021–25 compared with 2016–20 [3].
• Proven results: IMD correctly predicted Phailin (2013) and Hudhud (2014) [2]. WMO credits India's warnings with significantly reducing cyclone casualties [4].
• From forecast to decision: the WebGIS Cyclone & Marine DSS launched in October 2026 shows the cone of uncertainty, storm surge and district-wise rainfall warnings. It feeds the NDMA–SDMA–DDMA chain set up under the DM Act, 2005 [2].

Serving neighbourhood diplomacy goals

• A regional public good: advisories reach Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand [1]. This spans South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Gulf, and supports Neighbourhood First and Act East.
• Trust built by saving lives: IMD's warnings for Cyclone Mocha (2023) triggered government response and community mobilisation in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which minimised deaths [4].
• Room to lead on capacity: a WMO study of 20 LDCs and small island states found that none had fully implemented impact-based forecasting [5]. India's tools can fill this gap.
• Soft power: IMD's Director General is WMO's 3rd Vice-President and won the 2025 UN Sasakawa Award [4].

           IMD forecasting science
          /                       \
 Domestic warnings            RSMC advisories
 NDMA→SDMA→DDMA               Panel countries
 → lives saved                → trust, soft power

Fig.: One capability, two goals

Overall, the RSMC role turns a domestic forecasting strength into a regional public good. Going forward, India should share DSS layers with Panel countries under WMO's Early Warnings for All initiative and strengthen last-mile delivery at home. Doing so would make India a credible first responder in the Indian Ocean, in line with the Sendai Framework and SDG 13.