BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 123 of 143

Correct — B, Yokosuka, Japan. The Ministry of Defence announced on 11 June 2024, in a release headed 'Japan India Maritime Exercise – 24 (JIMEX – 24) commenced at Yokosuka Japan', that the Indian Navy's indigenous stealth frigate INS Shivalik had arrived at Yokosuka to take part in the bilateral drill. This was the eighth edition of JIMEX since the series began in 2012, and it was Japan's turn to host. The Indian Navy was represented by INS Shivalik and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force by the guided-missile destroyer JS Yugiri, with integral helicopters from both navies joining in. The exercise ran in two parts, as JIMEX always does: a harbour phase at Yokosuka comprising professional exchanges and sports and social interactions, followed by a sea phase in which the two navies practised complex multi-discipline operations across the surface, sub-surface and air domains to build interoperability. INS Shivalik was received at the port by Vice Admiral ITO Hiroshi, Commander of the JMSDF Yokosuka District, and by Sibi George, India's Ambassador to Japan. Yokosuka, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay in Kanagawa Prefecture, is one of the JMSDF's principal district headquarters, which is why the host-nation phase was based there rather than at sea off some other coast.

• (a)Bay of Bengal — The Bay of Bengal is the Indian Navy's home water for the Eastern Fleet and has hosted several multilateral drills, so it reads plausibly. But JIMEX 24 was hosted by Japan, and the announced venue was Yokosuka — the exercise never came into the Bay of Bengal.
• (c)Vishakhapatnam, India — Visakhapatnam is the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command and the natural Indian venue whenever India hosts a bilateral maritime exercise. That is precisely why it is the intended trap here: in 2024 the hosting duty lay with Japan, and the Ministry of Defence placed the exercise at Yokosuka.
• (d)Western Pacific Ocean — A vague oceanic answer designed to catch a candidate who remembers only that the exercise was somewhere off Japan. The question asks where the exercise was held, and the official announcement named a specific port — Yokosuka — as the venue at which JIMEX 24 commenced.

JIMEX is the dedicated bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, inaugurated in 2012 and now run in alternating waters so that each navy hosts in turn. It sits inside a wider India-Japan defence architecture that has thickened rapidly since the two countries declared a Special Strategic and Global Partnership: Dharma Guardian for the armies, Veer Guardian for the air forces, the multilateral Malabar exercise in which Japan has been a permanent participant since 2015, and a 2+2 dialogue of the two countries' foreign and defence ministers. The stated purpose of JIMEX is interoperability — getting two navies with different equipment, doctrine and language to manoeuvre, communicate and fight as one force — and its declared strategic frame is maritime security in the Indo-Pacific.

Current-affairs questions on defence exercises reward one habit: store the exercise name together with the partner country, the arm of service, the edition number and the venue. Here the stem supplies the name and the partner, so only the venue is in play, and the discriminator is which side hosted in 2024. Two of the four options — Bay of Bengal and Visakhapatnam — are Indian venues, and a candidate who cannot recall the host will usually split between them; the 'Western Pacific Ocean' option catches the candidate who half-remembers Japan but not the port. The single fact that resolves everything is that the Ministry of Defence's own release is titled 'JIMEX – 24 commenced at Yokosuka Japan'. Note also the naming convention: 'JIMEX-24' carries the year, not the edition number, which was the eighth.

• JIMEX 24 was the eighth edition of the Japan-India Maritime Exercise; the series began in 2012
• The exercise commenced at Yokosuka, Japan on 11 June 2024, per the Ministry of Defence/PIB release of that date
• India was represented by INS Shivalik, an indigenously built stealth frigate, and Japan by the guided-missile destroyer JS Yugiri, with integral helicopters from both navies
• JIMEX runs in a harbour phase (professional, sports and social interactions) followed by a sea phase covering surface, sub-surface and air domains
• Other India-Japan defence exercises: Dharma Guardian (armies), Veer Guardian (air forces) and the multilateral Malabar, in which Japan has been a permanent participant since 2015

• Mixing up the venue of consecutive editions — these exercises alternate hosts, so last year's Indian port is this year's wrong answer
• Reading the suffix in 'JIMEX-24' as the edition number; it is the calendar year, and this was the eighth edition
• Confusing bilateral JIMEX with multilateral Malabar, in which Japan also participates alongside the United States and Australia

BPSC asks defence current affairs as a single crisp recall — which exercise, with whom, where, in what year — with a geographic option set, exactly as here, and draws almost entirely from the twelve months before the paper. UPSC prefers a statement-cluster: it will list four claims about one exercise (partner country, venue, objective, services involved) and ask how many are correct, so a half-remembered fact costs the whole question rather than a quarter of it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The bilateral military exercise 'Dharma Guardian' is conducted between India and which country ?

  • (a)Japan
  • (b)Indonesia
  • (c)Singapore
  • (d)Vietnam

  Answer(a) Japan — Dharma Guardian is the India-Japan joint army exercise, the land-forces counterpart to the naval JIMEX and the air-force Veer Guardian.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Indian Navy ship represented India at JIMEX-24 held at Yokosuka in June 2024 ?

  • (a)INS Vikrant
  • (b)INS Shivalik
  • (c)INS Kolkata
  • (d)INS Delhi

  Answer(b) INS Shivalik — the indigenous stealth frigate named in the Ministry of Defence release; the JMSDF fielded the destroyer JS Yugiri.