Which one of the following statements about 'Nilgiri', 'Surat' and 'Vaghsheer' is correct?

Correct — B, these are combatants commissioned by the Indian Navy. All three entered service together at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on 15 January 2025, and the reason the item groups them is that they are three different kinds of warship commissioned in one ceremony. INS Surat is the fourth and last ship of Project 15B, the Visakhapatnam-class guided-missile destroyers. INS Nilgiri is the lead ship of Project 17A, the follow-on to the Shivalik-class stealth frigates. INS Vaghsheer is the sixth and final Scorpene-class diesel-electric submarine of Project 75. The names themselves carry the giveaway if you know the Navy's conventions: destroyers take major cities, frigates take hills and mountain ranges, and the Kalvari-class submarines take sea creatures — a vagsheer is a sandfish.

• (a)These are Tiger Reserves in the state of Gujarat. — Gujarat has no tiger reserve at all — its big-cat distinction is the Asiatic lion at Gir. The option leans on 'Nilgiri' sounding like a protected area, which it does: the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was India's first, notified in 1986. But that is a biosphere reserve in the Western Ghats, not a Gujarat tiger reserve, and Surat and Vaghsheer are not protected areas at all.
• (c)These are Biodiversity parks maintained by the Indian Army. — The Army does maintain some ecological parks, so the option is not absurd, but none of these three names belongs to one. The three are warships.
• (d)These are Tiger Reserves maintained by the Indian Navy. — Combines both errors — the wrong category and the wrong service. It is offered to catch a candidate who recognises the Navy connection but not what the names actually are.

The Indian Navy names its ships by class convention: destroyers after major cities (Delhi, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Surat), frigates after hill ranges and rivers (Nilgiri, Shivalik, Talwar), and Kalvari-class submarines after sea creatures (Kalvari the tiger shark, Khanderi, Karanj, Vela, Vagir, Vagsheer). Recognising the convention often identifies an unfamiliar name.

The 15 January 2025 commissioning was presented as a milestone for indigenous shipbuilding: all three were built at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders in Mumbai, and the Navy noted that commissioning a destroyer, a frigate and a submarine on the same day had not been done before. Project 15B destroyers and Project 17A frigates are both incremental, stealth-focused successors to earlier classes, while Vaghsheer closed out the six-boat Scorpene programme begun under a 2005 contract with France's Naval Group. As of the 2025 exam the follow-on questions were about Project 75(I) and additional Scorpenes, so a card written today should treat the Project 75 line as complete at six boats and note that further orders were under discussion.

• INS Nilgiri, INS Surat and INS Vaghsheer were commissioned together at Mumbai on 15 January 2025.
• Surat is the fourth Project 15B (Visakhapatnam-class) guided-missile destroyer.
• Nilgiri is the lead ship of Project 17A, the stealth frigate class following Shivalik.
• Vaghsheer is the sixth and last Scorpene-class submarine of Project 75, built at Mazagon Dock under licence from Naval Group.
• Naming conventions: destroyers after cities, frigates after hills and rivers, Kalvari-class submarines after sea creatures.

• Reading 'Nilgiri' as the biosphere reserve. It is also a frigate name, and the Navy has used it twice — the earlier Nilgiri-class frigates date from the 1970s.
• Assuming Gujarat has a tiger reserve. It has none; Gir is a lion sanctuary.
• Mixing up Vagir and Vaghsheer. Both are Scorpenes; Vagir was commissioned in January 2023 and Vaghsheer in January 2025.

As an odd-name-grouping item — three unfamiliar proper nouns that share one category — or as a straightforward current-affairs recall of a commissioning date and class.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  INS Vaghsheer, commissioned in January 2025, belongs to which class of submarines?

  • (a)Arihant
  • (b)Sindhughosh
  • (c)Scorpene (Kalvari)
  • (d)Shishumar

  Answer(c) Scorpene (Kalvari) — the sixth and last boat of Project 75, built at Mazagon Dock.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the Indian Navy's naming convention, ships named after major cities are usually:

  • (a)Submarines
  • (b)Destroyers
  • (c)Survey vessels
  • (d)Landing ships

  Answer(b) Destroyers — Delhi, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Surat. Frigates take hills and rivers.