PSIR Optional Paper II practice questions for UPSC Mains 2026.

• 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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• Maritime security. Coordination in the Indian Ocean, joint naval exercises, and cooperation between the Indian Navy and Operation Atalanta on anti-piracy in the Gulf of Aden, together with the wider Coordinated Maritime Presences approach.
• Cyber security and hybrid threats. Cooperation on critical infrastructure, disinformation and standards, building on the earlier cyber dialogue.
• Defence industrial cooperation. European access to India's defence manufacturing push and Indian access to European technology, which matters most as India diversifies away from a single supplier.
• Counter-terrorism and space, including cooperation on situational awareness.
• Connectivity as security. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at the 2023 G-20 links the trade and security agendas.

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• Demographic and political. In Assam and the North East, changes in population composition have produced insider-outsider conflict, the Assam Accord of 1985, the updated National Register of Citizens exercise published in 2019, and recurring violence.
• Internal security. Porous borders used by trafficking, counterfeit currency and arms networks, and the risk that documentation obtained fraudulently conceals hostile actors.
• Resource and labour competition in receiving districts, which converts an economic grievance into an ethnic one.
• Diplomatic strain. Bangladesh does not accept that large-scale irregular migration is occurring, so deportation is practically unavailable and the issue is managed rather than resolved.
• Rohingya displacement raises a distinct question, because India is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no domestic refugee law, leaving the response to executive discretion.
• Physical infrastructure — border fencing, floodlighting and roads along the Bangladesh border, extended to the Myanmar border after the free movement regime was restricted.
• Technology — the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System using sensors, radar and unmanned aerial surveillance in riverine stretches where fencing is impossible.

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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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