CDS (II) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 119 of 120

Correct — C, It was given by the Government of India to Sri Lankan Naval Force in 2006 and returned to the Indian Navy in May 2023. The country is wrong. This hull first entered service in 2001 as INS Tillanchang, a Trinkat-class fast attack craft, and in 2006 it was handed over to the Maldives, where it served the Maldives National Defence Force as CGS Huravee for some seventeen years. It came back to India in 2023 and was recommissioned as INS Tarmugli in May that year at Visakhapatnam under the Eastern Naval Command, taking a name from an island in the Andamans, as ships of this class do. Everything else in the question is accurate: she is a fast attack craft of the Indian Navy, she was commissioned at the naval dockyard at Visakhapatnam, and her role is coastal surveillance and patrol, along with search and rescue and maritime security duties in the approaches to the port.

• (a)It is a fast attack craft commissioned by the Indian Navy. — Accurate. She is a Trinkat-class fast attack craft in Indian Navy service.
• (b)It was commissioned at Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam. — Accurate. The recommissioning took place at Visakhapatnam under the Eastern Naval Command in May 2023.
• (d)It is supposed to be used for coastal surveillance. — Accurate. Fast attack craft of this size are employed on coastal patrol and surveillance, search and rescue and maritime security tasks.

India routinely transfers patrol vessels, aircraft and radar to Indian Ocean neighbours as part of its maritime security partnership, under the framework now described as Security and Growth for All in the Region. Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles have all received such platforms. Ships handed over in this way sometimes return at the end of their service with the recipient, and are then recommissioned in the Indian Navy under a new name; INS Tarmugli is the clearest recent example.

Which-statement-is-not-correct items about a single ship almost always plant the error in one specific of the ship's history — a date, a place or a country — while leaving the general description accurate. Here three statements describe class, venue and role correctly and the fourth names the wrong navy. The confusion is genuine rather than careless, because India has gifted patrol craft to Sri Lanka too; the discriminator is that this hull's foreign service was with the Maldives, where she was known as Huravee. Worth flagging: UPSC has not released a key for this paper, and some answer keys in circulation mark (b). The commissioning venue named there is accurate, whereas the navy the vessel served with between 2006 and 2023 is misnamed in (c), so this card takes (c).

• The vessel was commissioned in 2001 as INS Tillanchang, a Trinkat-class fast attack craft.
• She was handed over to the Maldives in 2006 and served as CGS Huravee with the Maldives National Defence Force.
• She returned to India and was recommissioned as INS Tarmugli in May 2023 at Visakhapatnam, under the Eastern Naval Command.
• Her role is coastal surveillance and patrol, search and rescue, and maritime security in the approaches to the port.
• Ships of this class are named after islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.

• Swapping the Maldives for Sri Lanka, since India has transferred vessels to both.
• Assuming a renamed ship is a new build; this hull is over twenty years old.
• Confusing a fast attack craft with a corvette or a frigate, which are far larger.

As a which-statement-is-not-correct item on a named ship, or as a match between vessels and the commands or yards they belong to.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  INS Tarmugli, recommissioned in 2023, had earlier served with the defence force of which country?

  • (a)Sri Lanka
  • (b)Maldives
  • (c)Mauritius
  • (d)Seychelles

  Answer(b) Maldives — as CGS Huravee, from 2006 until she returned to India in 2023.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  INS Tarmugli was recommissioned under which naval command?

  • (a)Western Naval Command
  • (b)Southern Naval Command
  • (c)Eastern Naval Command
  • (d)Andaman and Nicobar Command

  Answer(c) Eastern Naval Command — she was recommissioned at Visakhapatnam, the command's headquarters.