^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Indian Navy Flags

Naval Ensign
Currently Used Rank Flags (2004 series)
Second Series Rank Flags (2001 series, in use until 2004)
First series Rank Flags (first series, circa 1950-2001)

See also:

Currently Used Naval Ensign (2004 series)

1:2 by Željko Heimer

The 1950 pattern Naval Ensign has been restored, with the small addition of a national emblem in the centre of the cross, and that it has now been specified in proportion of 1:2. It is also interesting that the 1950 rank flags have been restored intact, and that the official specs are identical (with the addition of a Chakra of course) to those of their UK equivalents.
Christopher Southworth, 25 April 2004

The date of adoption is not firmly known, since the document on-line http://www.indiannavy.nic.in/new_ensign.pdf) announcing them is undated. However, it is clear that the Indian Navy used FOTW images to make some of the images in the document, and these images were not posted to the web by us until late January 2004 (Martin Grieve posted them to FOTW-mailing list in December 2003), and allowing some time for the Indian naval officers to track them down on FOTW and to include them in its documents, I would say that the decision signed by the President could not be more then a month or two old!
Željko Heimer, 29 April 2004

While in Delhi, I had the opportunity to attend the Beating Retreat ceremony on 29 January (2006) that concludes the celebrations surrounding Republic Day. The Chief of Naval Staff's car flew the naval ensign.
Joe McMillan, 2 February 2006

Construction Sheet

1:2 by Željko Heimer

The width of the red stripes composing the cross is 2/15 of the flag hoist size. The state emblem (lions) is set in the middle of the flag with size so: width 2/16 of the hoist and height 2/11 of the hoist. The national flag in the canton is as per the "'Flag Code of India' (reproduced in Chapter I of Navy Order (Spl) 03/2003)" (that we unfortunately do not have). This means that the details of the Chakra are not known to us (not only for this particular flag!). However, I believe that we could not be much mistaken if we say that the Chakra is inscribed in a circle with diameter "around 2/15" of the hoist. (Actually that may be a bit too large in comparison with the national flag that we currently show at the FOTW, where the Chakra is 5/6 of the white stripe - this would make it exactly 476.6 in the units on the image, but this is still an approximation.) The only way to retain the whole numbers in the diagram is making the hoist of 3960 units, and the figures on the sheet are still a bit clumsy.
Željko Heimer, 23 May 2004

Currently Used Rank Flags (2004 Series)

The navy blue Indian Naval Crest is also found in the flags of flag officer's. These are generally speaking 2:3 in the ratio and made up of a white field bordered in navy blue, with the Indian Naval Crest set towards the hoist and a varying number of stars according to rank in the free end: