“I know the city’s roads better than my liaison officer,” said Veri, on board the 1,500-tonne Italian ship ITS Borsini that boasts of stealth capabilities. Born in Mumbai in 1952 and schooled at the city’s Campion School, Rear Admiral Veri’s mother was a Goan. “She was a Pinto from Goa,” he says.

His father had come to India as an immigrant when most Italians were off to the United States, in the 1940s. His mother taught at St Anne’s School.

“My father wanted one of us (among three brothers) to join the defence forces and since my elder brother was not interested, I though that I’d join it for my father,” he says, a choice he cites as among his best.

The last time he visited India in 2005, the Indian Navy even organised a surprise function for him at his alma mater, Campion School.

But Veri is in now India on business in view of the swelling defence ties between the two naval forces and also because of increasing defence deals between the Indian Navy and Italian defence companies, mainly shipbuilding firm Fincantieri, headquartered in Trieste, and Finmeccanica, Italy’s second largest conglomerate with interests in defence, aerospace, security, automation, transport and energy. While Fincantieri has already sold its first hydrographical ship to the Indian Navy, talks are on for delivering an oil tanker for Indian waters.

Integration on sharing of information amongst different nation’s navies is also on Veri’s agenda. He is also proposing groups of regional networks to track vessel movements to counter pirates and terrorists. “The regional networks can then be integrated into a global one,” says the Rear Admiral, suggesting it be named the Virtual Maritime Traffic Centre (VMTC).

Veri, as an Italian Navy Rear Admiral, has 22 ships under his command and he cites in this figure an operational reason to visit Mumbai — to promote joint Indo-Italian military exercises, as India is now seen as a major force globally.

A naval pilot by profession, Veri was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in July 2001 and in 2007, the Commander of the National Front Line Naval Forces.