CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 103 of 120

Correct — D, India, Brazil and South Africa. The name carries the answer once it is unpacked: IBSAMAR is India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime, the naval exercise of the three countries that make up the IBSA Dialogue Forum. It is a trilateral, not a South Asian, gathering — three democracies on three different continents, each a major power in its own ocean neighbourhood, drilling together in seamanship, gunnery, boarding operations and anti-piracy work. The first edition was held off South Africa in May 2008 and most editions since have been hosted there; the fifth, in 2016, was hosted by India off Goa. The eighth edition ran at Simon's Town, South Africa, in October 2024.

• (a)India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives — A plausible-looking South Asian grouping, but none of these three neighbours has ever been an IBSAMAR participant. India's exercises with them run under other names.
• (b)India, Bangladesh and South Africa — Half right. South Africa is in, but Bangladesh is not — the third and second partners are Brazil and South Africa, the other two members of the IBSA Dialogue Forum.
• (c)India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Mauritius — Again an Indian Ocean neighbourhood list. IBSAMAR reaches across the South Atlantic to Brazil, which is what the 'B' in the name stands for.

IBSAMAR is the maritime limb of the IBSA Dialogue Forum, the India-Brazil-South Africa grouping formed in 2003 to coordinate three large democracies of the global South. The exercise brings their navies together for surface, air and special-forces drills. Its acronym is built the way many Indian exercise names are: the first letters of the partners plus a word for the domain, so India-Brazil-South Africa plus MAR for maritime.

The whole item is a naming test. Indian defence current affairs is thick with exercise names, and the reliable technique is to read the acronym rather than recall the news item. IBSAMAR splits cleanly into IBSA and MAR, and IBSA is a grouping a candidate is likely to have met in an economics or diplomacy context. Three of the four options are lists of Indian Ocean neighbours, which is the intended pull — most of India's naval exercises are indeed regional, so a grouping that stretches to the South Atlantic looks wrong until you decode the name. As of the September 2023 exam the most recent edition was the seventh, held at Gqeberha in South Africa in 2022; the eighth followed in October 2024 at Simon's Town.

• IBSAMAR stands for India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime and is conducted by the navies of those three countries.
• The three are the members of the IBSA Dialogue Forum, set up in 2003.
• The first edition was held in May 2008 off South Africa, which has hosted most editions since.
• India hosted the fifth edition, off Goa, in 2016.
• The eighth edition took place at the Simon's Town naval base in South Africa in October 2024.

• Assuming every Indian naval exercise is with an Indian Ocean neighbour — IBSAMAR reaches the South Atlantic.
• Confusing IBSA with BRICS; Russia and China are in BRICS but not in IBSA or IBSAMAR.
• Mixing up IBSAMAR with the army and air-force exercises India runs with the same partners.

As a one-line 'which countries take part in exercise X' item, or as a match of exercise names against partner countries.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The IBSA Dialogue Forum, from which the IBSAMAR naval exercise takes its name, consists of

  • (a)India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka
  • (b)India, Brazil and South Africa
  • (c)Indonesia, Brunei and South Africa
  • (d)India, Bangladesh and Singapore

  Answer(b) India, Brazil and South Africa — a grouping of three large democracies of the global South formed in 2003.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  'Varuna' is a naval exercise conducted by India with which one of the following countries?

  • (a)France
  • (b)Japan
  • (c)Oman
  • (d)Australia

  Answer(a) France — Naseem-Al-Bahr is the exercise with Oman and SIMBEX the one with Singapore.