An activist of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) walks past an anti-U.S. poster during a protest rally in the southern Indian city of Chennai September 5, 2007. About two dozen ships from five nations, led by the United States, began their most ambitious exercises in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday, as Indian communists opposed to strategic ties with Washington launched protests.The naval drill, called the "Malabar Exercise", is the seventh involving aircraft carriers, submarines and fighter jets of India and the U.S., whose friendship has blossomed this decade after they were on opposite sides of the Cold War.