Given below are two statements, one is labeled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).Assertion (A): The Indian Ocean has become the Military bases of many big powers.Reason (R): There are strong geopolitical benefits in the Indian Ocean and adjacent countries.Select the correct answer from the codes given below:

The correct answer is Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).The Indian Ocean has become the Military bases of MANY big powers.In it majorly India and China are stepping up their naval presence in the Indian Ocean.Reasons for such Militarizations are as follows.China’s Growing Naval Presence.The sizable Chinese presence prompted India to stage large-scale exercises in the Indian Ocean.The Indian Navy has been prodded into action to counter what is known as Beijing’s “string of pearls” strategy.Military surveillance facility of china on Myanmar’s Coco Island near the Malacca Strait, helping to facilitate the entry of Chinese naval ships into the Indian Ocean region.China has sold 10 SUBMARINES to India’s closest neighbours has established a naval base in Djibouti. India’s Concerns -China’s push raises the spectre of an Indian ballistic missile submarine being attacked by a Chinese submarine.The Indian Ocean sea LINES of communication being blocked by Chinese warships during a contingency.Beijing’s presence may prompt some countries that had been FRIENDLY toward New Delhi to shift allegiances.In a sense, China may be practising what ancient military strategist Sun Tzu held up as being the supreme art of war: to subdue the enemy without fighting.Therefore India, consequently, has felt the need to further RAISE its profile.India’s Countermeasures -Military PresenceCapacity Building​The Indian Ocean is the third-largest oceanic division of the world.It covers 70,560,000 km2.In terms of percentage, it is 19.8% of the water on Earth's surface.The Indian Ocean -North - AsiaWest - AfricaEast - AustraliaSouth- the Southern Ocean or Antarctica