PSIR Optional Paper II practice questions for UPSC Mains 2026.

• Energy and biofuels. Brazil's sugarcane ethanol programme is the world's oldest at scale and India's blending drive among the fastest growing; the Global Biofuel Alliance launched at the Delhi G-20 in 2023 institutionalises this.
• Agriculture. Brazil supplies soyabean oil and pulses, but the two compete in sugar, so cooperation must be negotiated rather than assumed.
• Pharmaceuticals. Indian generics have a large Brazilian market, and both defended intellectual property flexibilities during the pandemic.
• Defence, where Embraer's presence in India gives a base for co-production.
• Trade architecture. The India-Mercosur preferential agreement covers a narrow list; widening it is the largest available gain.

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• Pakistan — the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, running through territory India claims, converts an adversary into a structurally supported one.
• Sri Lanka — the Hambantota port lease of 2017 after debt distress, and the recurring controversy over Chinese research vessels docking, became the standard illustration of strategic exposure through debt.
• Nepal — transit and connectivity agreements after 2015, and Chinese engagement with Nepali party politics, have reduced India's former monopoly on access.
• Bangladesh — major Chinese defence supplier and infrastructure financier, even while economic ties with India deepen.
• Maldives — the free trade agreement and the India Out campaign showed how domestic politics can be leveraged.
• Myanmar and Afghanistan — pipelines, Kyaukphyu port and mineral interests.

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• Security provision. Operation Cactus in 1988, when Indian forces reversed a coup attempt within hours, remains the founding act of trust and is still cited in both capitals.
• First responder. The 2004 tsunami, the 2014 Male water crisis when India airlifted drinking water, and pandemic vaccine supply.
• Development and capacity. The Greater Male Connectivity Project, housing, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, and the largest share of Maldivian training slots in Indian institutions.
• Location. The archipelago sits astride the sea lanes carrying the bulk of India's energy imports, which makes maritime domain awareness there a direct Indian interest.
• Domestic politics. The relationship has become an electoral issue, with the India Out campaign in 2023 turning the small Indian military presence — helicopters and a Dornier aircraft for medical evacuation and surveillance — into a sovereignty question. Indian personnel were replaced by civilian technical staff in 2024.
• The China factor. The free trade agreement and infrastructure lending give Male an alternative, and debt sustainability has become a live concern.
• Asymmetry management. The chief Maldivian complaint is not Indian assistance but the perception of Indian oversight, which small states resent structurally.

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• The real dispute is fishing, not sovereignty. The Palk Bay is shallow, narrow and over-fished, and Indian trawlers from Tamil Nadu cross into Sri Lankan waters. Bottom trawling is banned in Sri Lanka and destroys the seabed that northern Sri Lankan fishermen, themselves rebuilding after the civil war, depend on. Their grievance is legitimate and independent of politics.
• Domestic politics in Tamil Nadu. The Assembly has repeatedly resolved for retrieval, and the issue recurs at every election; a writ petition challenging the cession has been pending in the Supreme Court since 2008. No Indian government can concede finality.
• Sri Lanka's position is legally settled and politically immovable. Retrocession would require a treaty, and no Colombo government could survive proposing it.
• The arrests continue — Indian fishermen are detained regularly, which keeps the issue emotionally live even in years when nothing legal changes.

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• With the United States and its partners in the Quad, the 2+2 ministerial dialogue, and the foundational defence agreements.
• With Russia and China in BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and RIC, while continuing large-scale Russian defence procurement and discounted crude purchases after 2022.
• With the global South through the Voice of Global South Summit and the admission of the African Union to the G-20 during India's presidency in 2023.
• With West Asia through I2U2 and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, while maintaining ties with Iran through Chabahar.
• In climate and energy through the International Solar Alliance, an institution India itself created.

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• Defence. Russia remains the largest source of India's legacy inventory — the S-400 system, the leased nuclear submarine, licensed T-90 and Su-30MKI production, and the BrahMos joint venture, the deepest co-development India has with any partner.
• Energy. After 2022, discounted Russian crude went from a negligible share of Indian imports to the largest single source, transforming a marginal trade relationship into a substantial one.
• Nuclear power. Kudankulam remains the flagship civil nuclear project.
• Diplomatic reliability. Russia's consistent position on Kashmir at the Security Council, and India's abstentions on Ukraine resolutions, reflect a long habit of not embarrassing each other.
• Trade beyond energy is thin, and the surplus is overwhelmingly in Russia's favour, creating a payments problem that rupee-rouble arrangements have not solved.
• Defence diversification. Russia's share of Indian arms imports has fallen substantially as India turns to France, Israel, the United States and domestic production, and the war has raised doubts about Russian delivery schedules and technology.
• The China factor is the structural problem. Russia's deepening dependence on Beijing after 2022 reduces its ability to be an independent balancer for India, which was the original strategic value of the relationship.

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• Israel and the Arab states, where the Abraham Accords of 2020 normalised relations with the UAE and Bahrain, while Gaza has since made further normalisation politically costly.
• Saudi Arabia and Iran, a rivalry with sectarian, strategic and oil dimensions, which the Beijing-brokered restoration of ties in 2023 softened without resolving.
• Within the Gulf, the blockade of Qatar from 2017 to 2021 showed that the Gulf Cooperation Council is not a bloc.
• Turkey and the Arab states, over the Muslim Brotherhood, Libya and eastern Mediterranean gas.
• Proxy theatres in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, where the same actors appear in different combinations.
• External powers, with American commitment perceived as declining, Chinese economic penetration deepening and Russia present through Syria and OPEC+ coordination.
• With Israel — defence technology and counter-terrorism.

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• Trade and investment. South Africa is among India's largest African trading partners, with Indian imports of gold, coal and minerals and exports of vehicles, pharmaceuticals and engineering goods. Indian firms have a substantial presence, and the Indian-origin community of over a million people is a standing link.
• Defence. Naval cooperation, the IBSAMAR trilateral exercise, and defence industrial contact.
• Health and technology. Generic medicines, and cooperation in space and information technology.
• IBSA — the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum of 2003, three democracies of the South with a development fund of their own.
• BRICS, in which South Africa is the African anchor and which India supported expanding.
• The G-20, where India handed over to a South African presidency and both pressed the case for the African Union's inclusion and for debt relief.
• The WTO, where the two jointly proposed the TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 vaccines in 2020, the clearest instance of coordinated Southern leadership in recent years.

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