CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 101 of 120

Correct — A, Port Blair. The maiden Singapore-India-Thailand Maritime Exercise, SITMEX, ran from 16 to 20 September 2019 and was hosted by India. It was built in two parts: a harbour phase at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with expert exchanges, pre-sail conferences and even basketball between the ships' teams, followed by a sea phase in the Andaman Sea. India contributed the guided-missile destroyer INS Ranvir, the missile corvette INS Kora and the offshore patrol vessel INS Sukanya, along with maritime patrol aircraft; Singapore sent the frigate RSS Tenacious and Thailand the frigate HTMS Kraburi. Port Blair is the natural venue because the Andaman and Nicobar Command sits astride the approaches to the Strait of Malacca, which is exactly the water the three navies were exercising to keep open.

• (b)Chennai — A major port and the seat of the Eastern Naval Command's Tamil Nadu establishments, but it is on the mainland coast, hundreds of nautical miles from the Malacca approaches that give this particular exercise its purpose.
• (c)Panaji — On the Arabian Sea side of the peninsula, in Goa. India's western-seaboard exercises with European and Gulf navies use these waters; an exercise with Singapore and Thailand does not.
• (d)Kochi — Home to the Southern Naval Command and India's training establishments, and a frequent venue for multinational events. But again it faces the Arabian Sea, not the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

India runs a dense calendar of naval exercises, and they fall into families. Bilateral exercises carry fixed names with a partner navy — SIMBEX with Singapore since the 1990s, Varuna with France, Konkan with the United Kingdom, Naseem-Al-Bahr with Oman. Multilateral ones such as Malabar and MILAN bring several navies together. SITMEX is the trilateral in that scheme, and it was created to make the Indian Navy, the Republic of Singapore Navy and the Royal Thai Navy work together in the eastern Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Match the geography to the partners and the venue follows. Singapore and Thailand both sit on or near the Strait of Malacca, and India's own position there is the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, whose administrative and naval centre is Port Blair. The exercise has not stayed at Port Blair — hosting rotates, and the 2020 edition was hosted by Singapore in the Andaman Sea — so treat the answer as a fact about the maiden edition rather than a permanent venue. Do not generalise 'Port Blair' to every naval exercise question either: the first phase of Malabar 2020, for instance, was conducted at Visakhapatnam.

• The maiden SITMEX was held from 16 to 20 September 2019, hosted by India.
• The harbour phase was at Port Blair and the sea phase in the Andaman Sea.
• India fielded INS Ranvir, INS Kora and INS Sukanya with maritime patrol aircraft; Singapore sent RSS Tenacious and Thailand HTMS Kraburi.
• SITMEX is trilateral — India, Singapore and Thailand; hosting rotates between the three.
• The Andaman and Nicobar Command, headquartered at Port Blair, is India's only tri-service theatre command.

• Assuming Port Blair is the venue for every eastern exercise; Malabar 2020's first phase was at Visakhapatnam.
• Confusing SITMEX with SIMBEX — the first is the trilateral with Singapore and Thailand, the second the long-running bilateral with Singapore alone.
• Assuming the host stays fixed; SITMEX hosting rotates among the three navies.

As a venue or participants question on a named exercise, or as a match of exercises to partner countries.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  SIMBEX is a long-running bilateral naval exercise between India and

  • (a)Thailand
  • (b)Singapore
  • (c)Indonesia
  • (d)Malaysia

  Answer(b) Singapore — the bilateral exercise that predates the trilateral SITMEX by more than two decades.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Andaman and Nicobar Command of the Indian armed forces is headquartered at

  • (a)Visakhapatnam
  • (b)Chennai
  • (c)Port Blair
  • (d)Kochi

  Answer(c) Port Blair — it is India's only tri-service theatre command, placed to watch the approaches to the Strait of Malacca.