Recently, India gave a coastal radar system to which one of the following countries?

Correct — B, Maldives. The coastal radar chain India built for its closest maritime neighbour is the project this question tracks. Under the security understanding reached with Malé in 2009, India undertook to install radar stations across the Maldivian atolls — the archipelago had radars on only two of them — and to network the chain with India's own coastal radar grid, so that a single picture of approaching vessels and aircraft is available to both countries. The package went with basing Indian helicopters in the islands and regular Dornier surveillance sorties by the Indian Coast Guard, and it was carried forward through the defence line of credit extended in 2021.

• (a)Bangladesh — India's maritime relationship with Dhaka has run mainly through the settled maritime boundary and coordinated patrolling in the Bay of Bengal. The atoll radar network in this question sits on the other side of the subcontinent.
• (c)Sri Lanka — Cooperation with Colombo has centred on ship transfers, training and the Colombo Security Conclave, the trilateral maritime arrangement that also includes the Maldives. The chain of radar stations named here is the Maldivian one.
• (d)United Arab Emirates — The Gulf partner's headline agreement with India in this period was economic — the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in February 2022 — not coastal surveillance infrastructure.

India's maritime security policy in its own neighbourhood works by extending surveillance rather than by stationing force: radars, aircraft sorties, patrol vessels and training given to smaller Indian Ocean states, with the data linked back into India's own coastal grid. The Maldives, sitting astride the sea lanes west of India, is the anchor of that effort.

The archipelago has more than a thousand islands spread across a vast stretch of ocean and almost no capacity to watch them, which is what made a radar chain the natural form of assistance. Anchor the answer to the 2022 exam and then note honestly what has happened since — relations cooled sharply after the 2023 Maldivian presidential election, an 'India Out' campaign and the diplomatic row of January 2024, before recovering to the point where India extended a line of credit of ₹4,850 crore in July 2025. The radar cooperation belongs to a relationship that has moved considerably since the paper was set.

• Under the 2009 understanding India agreed to install coastal radars across the Maldivian atolls and link them to India's own coastal radar chain.
• The package also covered Indian helicopters based in the islands and Indian Coast Guard Dornier surveillance sorties.
• India extended a defence line of credit of 50 million US dollars to the Maldives in February 2021, largely for the Uthuru Thila Falhu naval harbour.
• The Colombo Security Conclave brings India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka together on maritime security, with other Indian Ocean states later joining.
• Ekuverin is the annual India-Maldives joint military exercise.

• Assuming any Indian Ocean neighbour will do, when the question names a specific project.
• Confusing the coastal radar chain with the Uthuru Thila Falhu harbour project, which is a separate line of credit.
• Carrying a 2022 picture of the relationship into the present without noting how much it has shifted.

Asked as a current-affairs pairing of a project or an exercise with the country it belongs to, which is why the exercise names are worth learning alongside the projects.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Ekuverin is a joint military exercise between India and

  • (a)Sri Lanka
  • (b)Maldives
  • (c)Bangladesh
  • (d)Nepal

  Answer(b) Maldives — the annual India-Maldives bilateral exercise; Mitra Shakti is with Sri Lanka and Sampriti with Bangladesh.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Colombo Security Conclave, a maritime security grouping, originally brought together India with

  • (a)Sri Lanka and Maldives
  • (b)Bangladesh and Myanmar
  • (c)Indonesia and Thailand
  • (d)Oman and Iran

  Answer(a) Sri Lanka and Maldives — the trilateral arrangement was later widened to include other Indian Ocean states.