Which one among the following statements with regard to India's maritime initiative, SAGAR, is correct?
- (a)It is a platform for conducting joint naval exercises under QUAD
- (b)It aimed at promoting maritime cooperation with countries of the Indian Ocean Region
- (c)It is an alliance of India, USA and Japan to provide safety to merchant ships passing through the Indian Ocean Region
- (d)It is the name given to India's participation in the Contact Group on Piracy set up by the UN Security Council
Correct — B, it aimed at promoting maritime cooperation with countries of the Indian Ocean Region. SAGAR stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region, and the Prime Minister set it out in Mauritius in March 2015. It is a policy vision rather than an organisation: India offers its neighbours in the Indian Ocean help with maritime security, capacity building, hydrography, coastal surveillance and disaster relief, while seeking a rules-based order at sea and sustainable use of ocean resources. Deployments such as Mission Sagar, which carried food and medical supplies to Indian Ocean countries during the pandemic, are the vision put into practice.
- (a)It is a platform for conducting joint naval exercises under QUAD — The Quad is a separate grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the United States, and the naval exercise associated with several of them is Malabar. SAGAR is India's own regional vision, not a Quad platform.
- (c)It is an alliance of India, USA and Japan to provide safety to merchant ships passing through the Indian Ocean Region — SAGAR is not an alliance and has no fixed membership. It is India's stated approach to its maritime neighbourhood, extended to the littoral and island states of the region.
- (d)It is the name given to India's participation in the Contact Group on Piracy set up by the UN Security Council — India does take part in international counter-piracy coordination, but that is separate work. SAGAR is a broad vision covering security, capacity building, economic cooperation and disaster response.
SAGAR was framed to answer a strategic problem: the Indian Ocean carries a large share of world trade and most of India's own energy imports, and India's smaller maritime neighbours needed partners for surveillance, hydrography and disaster response. The vision therefore pairs security with development, and it runs alongside India's membership of the Indian Ocean Rim Association and its bilateral coastal-radar and training arrangements with Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
The word sagar means ocean, and the acronym is deliberate, which is why the distractors all sound plausible: each names a real thing in the same waters. Separating them is a matter of remembering what kind of object each is — the Quad is a grouping of four countries, Malabar is a naval exercise, the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia is an international coordination body, and SAGAR is India's own declared vision. One update belongs on this card: in March 2025, again in Mauritius, India restated the vision in wider terms as MAHASAGAR, Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions, extending the approach beyond the Indian Ocean towards the Global South. SAGAR remains the name to know for a 2024 paper.
- SAGAR stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region and was announced in Mauritius in March 2015.
- It covers maritime security, capacity building, hydrography, coastal surveillance, disaster relief and the sustainable use of ocean resources.
- Mission Sagar, which carried relief supplies to Indian Ocean countries from May 2020, is one of its practical expressions.
- The Quad is a separate grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the United States; Malabar is the naval exercise several of them hold.
- In March 2025 India set out MAHASAGAR, Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions, as a wider version of the same vision.
- Reading SAGAR as an alliance or an organisation with members.
- Confusing the vision with the Mission Sagar deployments that flow from it.
- Attaching SAGAR to the Quad because both concern maritime cooperation.
A single-correct current-affairs item whose three wrong options each name a real maritime arrangement, so the answer depends on knowing what kind of thing SAGAR is.
Which one of the following ships was involved in ‘Mission Sagar – II’?
- (a) INS Shakti
- (b) INS Vikramaditya
- (c) INS Kesari
- (d) INS Airavat
Answer(d) INS Airavat
The follow-up deployment, which carried food aid to Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea. The sequence of these missions shows how the vision widened from the island states towards the western Indian Ocean.
Which one of the following ships was deployed in ‘Mission Sagar’, which was sent to different countries carrying Food and COVID related items on 10 May 2020?
- (a) INS Kesari
- (b) INS Satpura
- (c) INS Shivalik
- (d) INS Gomati
Answer(a) INS Kesari
The vision in action, tested on a keyed CAPF paper four years earlier. Mission Sagar took its name from this framework, and the relief voyages to Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros are what maritime cooperation with the region looks like in practice.
Which of the following statements about Quad is/are correct? 1. It is a group of four countries, namely, India, Australia, USA and France. 2. Maritime cooperation is an important binding force among members of the Quad. 3. The Quad members formed a working group on COVID-19 vaccines. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 1 and 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(c) 2 and 3 only
The grouping named in this question's first wrong option, tested directly on a keyed CAPF paper. Its membership is India, Australia, Japan and the United States, and it is a four-country grouping rather than a platform belonging to any single country's vision.
- practice — not a real PYQ
SAGAR, India's maritime vision, stands for
- (a)Sustainable Growth and Regional Access
- (b)Security and Growth for All in the Region
- (c)Safe Access to Global Areas and Routes
- (d)Strategic Alliance for Growth in the Region
Answer(b) Security and Growth for All in the Region — announced in Mauritius in March 2015.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Mission Sagar, begun in May 2020, involved
- (a)an Antarctic research voyage
- (b)delivery of food and medical supplies to Indian Ocean countries
- (c)a joint exercise with the Quad navies
- (d)a deep-sea mining survey
Answer(b) delivery of food and medical supplies to Indian Ocean countries — a naval relief deployment during the pandemic.