Which international summit did Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend in Bangkok in April 2025?
- (a)ASEAN Summit
- (b)SAARC Summit
- (c)BIMSTEC Summit
- (d)G-20 Summit
Correct — C, BIMSTEC Summit.
Bangkok hosted the sixth summit of BIMSTEC — the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation — on 4 April 2025, and Prime Minister Modi travelled to Thailand for it.
Thailand is one of the grouping's seven members, alongside Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. A Bangkok venue therefore sits inside BIMSTEC's own membership, which is the first check worth running here.
Carry away that BIMSTEC is the Bay of Bengal grouping that links five South Asian states to Myanmar and Thailand. India is a full member of BIMSTEC, SAARC and the G-20; in ASEAN it takes part as a dialogue partner.
- (a)ASEAN Summit — Bangkok is a real ASEAN venue, and that is what makes this option tempting. But an ASEAN Summit is a meeting of ASEAN's own member states, and India is not one of them.
India engages the bloc as a dialogue partner, through the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit held alongside it. This option fits the ASEAN-India and East Asia Summits that Modi attended in Bangkok in November 2019, not an April 2025 engagement.
- (b)SAARC Summit — Thailand is not a SAARC member at all — SAARC's eight members are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and its summits are hosted by member states in rotation, so a SAARC leaders' meeting would not convene in Bangkok.
The summit process is also stalled: the nineteenth SAARC Summit, scheduled for Islamabad in November 2016, was postponed. This option fits the eighteenth SAARC Summit at Kathmandu in November 2014, which Modi attended.
- (d)G-20 Summit — The G-20 leaders meet once a year in the country holding the rotating presidency. South Africa held it in 2025 and hosted the leaders' summit at Johannesburg in November, so neither the city nor the month in the stem matches.
This option fits the G-20 Leaders' Summit India hosted at New Delhi in September 2023.
BIMSTEC is a regional grouping of seven states around the Bay of Bengal, set up for practical cooperation — connectivity, trade, energy, security and people-to-people links — among neighbours that ring one maritime space.
Its distinguishing feature is that it joins five South Asian members to Myanmar and Thailand. That makes it a bridge between South Asia and Southeast Asia rather than a purely South Asian body, and it is why its summits can be held in Bangkok.
For India, BIMSTEC is the working regional platform while the SAARC summit process remains suspended, and it sits naturally alongside the Act East approach because two of its members are Southeast Asian.
The Bangkok meeting of April 2025 brought the grouping's leaders together in person again, which is why the pairing of city, month and grouping is worth fixing in memory as one unit.
- BIMSTEC stands for Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation.
- Its seven members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
- The BIMSTEC Secretariat is located at Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- The grouping began in June 1997 as BIST-EC under the Bangkok Declaration and took its present name after Nepal and Bhutan joined in 2004.
- The first BIMSTEC Summit was held at Bangkok in 2004.
- The fifth BIMSTEC Summit was hosted by Sri Lanka on 30 March 2022, where the BIMSTEC Charter was signed.
- The sixth BIMSTEC Summit was held at Bangkok on 4 April 2025, with Prime Minister Modi attending.
- Myanmar is a BIMSTEC member and also a SAARC observer; Thailand is a BIMSTEC member with no SAARC membership or observer status, while Pakistan, the Maldives and Afghanistan are in SAARC but not in BIMSTEC.
The four options sorted by the meeting each one actually names.
- Bangkok is a venue for more than one grouping, so the city alone cannot settle the answer — the date has to do the work.
- Reading 'international summit attended by the Prime Minister' as a summit India belongs to as a bloc member: in ASEAN meetings India sits as a dialogue partner.
- Carrying forward the 2022 BIMSTEC summit, which Sri Lanka hosted, and so rejecting a Bangkok venue for the grouping.
- SAARC and BIMSTEC share five members, so recognising the member countries is not enough to name the grouping.
- Assuming a G-20 summit could be the answer without checking the presidency year, which fixes both the host country and the month.
The idea appears as a place-and-date recall: a summit is named with a city and a month, and the answer is the grouping — or the grouping is given and the answer is the city.
A second shape puts two statements about one edition — who hosted it, who chaired it, what was signed there — and asks which hold.
Membership and institutional detail are worth being ready for as well: which country belongs to the Bay of Bengal body but not the South Asian one, or where a grouping's secretariat sits.
UPPSC_2022_PRE_GSI_Q1192022Same grouping, a different edition. That item tests two statements about the 5th BIMSTEC Summit of 30 March 2022 — that Modi addressed it, and who chaired it — so it rewards knowing the host and chair of that summit. Ours asks only for the grouping behind a city and month, and points to the 2025 Bangkok edition instead. Preparing the 2022 item gives you BIMSTEC but not the later summit.
UKPSC_2021_PRE_GSI_Q1202021Same paper family and the same device: a dated engagement of the Prime Minister where the answer is a place. What differs is the arena — that item is domestic infrastructure, the site of an airport foundation stone in November 2021, while ours is a multilateral summit abroad and asks for the grouping rather than the location.
RPSC_2016_PRE_Prelims2016_Q1272016Shares the shape — a Modi foreign engagement where the four options are the candidates and only one matches the event. It differs in substance: that item turns on a bilateral honour conferred by a single country, with no regional grouping involved, whereas ours turns on identifying a seven-member organisation from its host city and date.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Secretariat of BIMSTEC is located in which city?
- (a)Kathmandu
- (b)Dhaka
- (c)Bangkok
- (d)Colombo
Answerb — The BIMSTEC Secretariat is at Dhaka, Bangladesh.Kathmandu is the seat of the SAARC Secretariat, not BIMSTEC's. Bangkok is where the grouping was founded in 1997 and where the first and sixth summits met, but it does not house the secretariat. Sri Lanka chaired the fifth summit in 2022, held virtually from Colombo — a chair, not a permanent seat.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following countries is a member of BIMSTEC but not a member of SAARC?
- (a)Nepal
- (b)Bhutan
- (c)Thailand
- (d)Maldives
Answerc — Thailand is one of the seven BIMSTEC members and is not a SAARC member — nor even a SAARC observer.Nepal and Bhutan belong to both groupings, so neither can be the answer. The Maldives is the reverse case: a SAARC member that is not in BIMSTEC.
- practice — not a real PYQ
With reference to the 6th BIMSTEC Summit, consider the following statements: 1. It was held at Bangkok in April 2025. 2. It was the first BIMSTEC Summit to be hosted by Bangkok. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answera — Statement 1 is correct: the sixth summit met at Bangkok on 4 April 2025.Statement 2 is incorrect, because Bangkok had already hosted the first BIMSTEC Summit in 2004. Since statement 1 stands and statement 2 falls, options (b), (c) and (d) are all ruled out.