CDS Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: 7–13 September 2026

The correct answer is Malaysia. The release states that INS Mysore arrived at Lumut, Malaysia, to take part in the fourth edition of the bilateral maritime exercise Samudra Laksamana between the Indian Navy and the Royal Malaysian Navy, and it adds that the ship and her crew were welcomed by Royal Malaysian Navy personnel and by officials from the High Commission of India in Malaysia. The wider context given in the release also points to the same country, since it recalls the twelfth India-Malaysia Sub Committee Meeting and speaks of the maritime partnership between India and Malaysia. Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand are all members of the same regional grouping and are therefore plausible-looking options, but not one of them is named anywhere in this release. Candidates should file this exercise under the India-Malaysia pair, and should be careful not to confuse the partner country simply because the wider framework mentioned is the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation.

The correct answer is Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam. The three-day exercise was held under the aegis of the Colombo Security Conclave and concluded at this command, with the opening address delivered by Rear Admiral Manoj Jha, Chief Staff Officer (Operations) of the same command. Option A names the Western Naval Command, whose headquarters is at Mumbai, and it did not host this drill. Option B names the Southern Naval Command at Kochi, which is the training command of the Indian Navy and again not the venue here. Option D names the tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command at Port Blair, which was not involved in this exercise. Candidates should keep the three main naval commands and their headquarters ready in memory, since questions on exercises usually test the city and the command together. Here the useful pairing is Visakhapatnam with the Eastern Naval Command.

The correct answer is a sail training ship. The Ministry of Defence release describes INS Sudarshini in exactly these words and records that she set sail from Livorno in Italy after completing a successful port call. During the stay the ship took part in professional interactions and cross-training visits that strengthened ties between the two navies, and Indian sea trainees visited the Italian Naval Academy and the Italian ship ITS Virginio Fasan. Option B is wrong because a guided missile destroyer is a front-line warship and not a training platform for young officers and cadets. Option C is wrong because a submarine tender supports submarines at sea and no such role is described here. Option D is wrong because an aircraft carrier operates fixed wing aircraft and is a far larger class of vessel. The role of a ship is asked as often as its name.

The correct answer is Rs 1,10,000 crore. The Defence Acquisition Council, meeting under the chairmanship of the Raksha Mantri, gave Acceptance of Necessity to acquisition proposals of the three Services at an estimated cost of about that amount. Acceptance of Necessity is only the in-principle administrative approval; the contract and the payment come much later, so a question that asks what the council did should be answered with the word approval and not with the word purchase. The other three options carry figures that the release does not mention at all, and a paper setter uses such near-round numbers because a candidate who has read the headline quickly will confuse one large figure with another. The safest way to remember it is as one and a tenth lakh crore rupees, cleared in a single sitting for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force together, with about 98 per cent of that value to be sourced from Indian industry.

The correct answer is Japan. Veer Guardian-2026 is a bilateral air exercise of the Indian Air Force and the Japan Air Self Defence Force, and it is being held at Air Force Station Jodhpur from 9 September 2026 to 22 September 2026. Option A, France, is wrong as a country, although the confusion is understandable: the Rafale that the Indian Air Force is flying in this drill was bought from France. France is not a participant here. Option C, Australia, is wrong; no Australian aircraft or crew is listed in the announcement of this exercise. Option D, Singapore, is wrong for the same reason. The word bilateral is the key to the question, because it tells the aspirant that exactly two air forces are taking part, and in this case they are those of India and Japan. Remember the pairing of the name and the partner: Veer Guardian goes with Japan.

The correct answer is New Delhi. The first meeting of the Joint Defence Committee between India and Morocco took place in the Indian capital on 8 September 2026, and the Moroccan delegation was in India from 7 to 10 September 2026 for the purpose. Option A, Rabat, is the capital of Morocco and therefore the most tempting wrong answer, but this sitting was hosted by India, not by Morocco. Option B, Casablanca, is Morocco's best known commercial city and has no link with this meeting. Option D, Mumbai, is wrong because the delegation's programme in India covered the National War Memorial, DPSU Bhawan and the Army Hospital (Research and Referral), all of which are in the capital. Note also that the committee itself was set up under a defence memorandum signed in Morocco in September 2025, which is a separate fact.

The correct answer is fourth. The release says plainly that INS Mysore arrived at Lumut to participate in the fourth edition of the bilateral maritime exercise Samudra Laksamana held between the Indian Navy and the Royal Malaysian Navy. Edition numbers are a favourite of paper setters because they are easy to confuse, so it is worth separating the numbers that appear in this release. The exercise is in its fourth edition. The India-Malaysia Sub Committee Meeting referred to as a recent engagement was the twelfth, and it was held on 1 July 2026. The ship itself reached the Malaysian port on 9 September 2026. Options A, B and D are the editions on either side of the correct one and are exactly the kind of near-miss answers that catch a candidate who remembers the name of the exercise but not its count. Remember the pair: fourth edition, twelfth sub committee meeting.

The correct answer is Coordinated Response to Illicit Maritime Activities in the Indian Ocean Region. The exercise was built around non-traditional security challenges rather than conventional naval combat. Delegations and maritime security experts from member states and observer nations of the Conclave worked through simulated operational scenarios for more than 72 hours, covering maritime terrorism, narcotics smuggling, human trafficking, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Option A describes disaster relief, which is a common theme for naval drills but was not the stated subject of this one. Options C and D describe conventional warfighting tasks, anti-submarine operations and amphibious landings, which belong to a different category of exercise altogether. The distinction matters, because a table top exercise is conducted on maps, screens and discussion tables rather than at sea, and is therefore suited to planning and procedure rather than live warfighting drills.

The correct answer is Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions. The release states this expansion while describing how INS Sudarshini carries forward the spirit of maritime partnership as she continues her voyage under the Lokayan 2026 expedition. Options A, C and D are close but wrong expansions, and each of them changes at least one key word of the correct phrase. Distractors of this type are common in examinations because a candidate who remembers only the sense of an acronym will not be able to separate them. The safest method is to learn the exact words in order. Note also that the ship left the Italian port of Livorno on 12 September 2026, and that the Chief of the Italian Navy visited her during the port call.

The correct answer is the Raksha Mantri. The release states that the meeting was held under the chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh, so the Defence Minister heads this council. Option A names the Chief of Defence Staff, who is the senior most military officer and advises on tri-Service matters, but the release does not place him in the chair of this body. Option B names the Defence Secretary, the senior most civil servant of the ministry, whose role in the acquisition process is administrative rather than presiding. Option D names the National Security Adviser, who works on national security policy and not on the clearance of capital purchases. Candidates should link the council with the minister in the same way they link the Cabinet Committee on Security with the Prime Minister, because examinations very often ask only who presides over a named body.

The correct answer is Air Force Station Jodhpur. The Ministry of Defence has said that the Indian Air Force and the Japan Air Self Defence Force are flying the Veer Guardian-2026 exercise at this station in Rajasthan, and the programme runs from 9 September 2026 to 22 September 2026. Option A, Hindon, is a large transport base near Delhi, but it is not the venue named for this drill. Option B, Kalaikunda, in West Bengal, has hosted air exercises in the past, which makes it a plausible distractor, yet the announcement does not place Veer Guardian-2026 there. Option D, Sulur, in Tamil Nadu, is associated with Tejas operations, so an aspirant who remembers only the Tejas may be tempted, but the venue is still Jodhpur. Always fix the venue with the name of the exercise while revising, because the paper setter tests exactly this pairing.

The correct answer is the Raksha Mantri. A Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation was signed when Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh visited Morocco in September 2025, and the Joint Defence Committee is the institutional mechanism established through that MoU. Option A, the Prime Minister, is wrong because the release ties the agreement to the Defence Minister's visit, not to a prime ministerial one. Option C, the External Affairs Minister, is a plausible distractor because the Ministry of External Affairs was represented in the Indian delegation at the meeting, yet representation at a meeting is not the same as signing the parent agreement. Option D, the Chief of Defence Staff, is wrong since such memoranda are signed at the political level rather than by a Service or tri-Service chief. The chain to remember is simple: the 2025 visit produced the MoU, and the MoU produced this committee.

The correct answer is Lumut. According to the release, INS Mysore arrived at Lumut, Malaysia, as part of the operational deployment of the Indian Navy, and it was there that personnel of the Royal Malaysian Navy and officials of the Indian High Commission received the ship and her crew. No other Malaysian port is named in the release, so Port Klang, Kota Kinabalu and Penang are all outside it, however familiar those names may sound. Along with the port, two other details from the same release deserve to be memorised together, because questions are often built by swapping one for another: the exercise is conducted in harbour as well as at sea and covers cross-deck visits, operational interactions and sporting engagements, and the engagement is aligned with the MAHASAGAR vision of the Government of India and with the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation 2026.

The correct answer is Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions. The Ministry of Defence described the Colombo Security Conclave exercise as aligned with this vision, which frames India's approach to security and development cooperation with its maritime neighbours. The other three options are constructed to look convincing, because each expands the same acronym with words drawn from the vocabulary of maritime cooperation, and a candidate who has memorised only the word MAHASAGAR without its expansion can be caught. The exercise itself reinforced the practical side of that vision: participants reviewed existing Standard Operating Procedures and streamlined information-sharing arrangements to strengthen collective Maritime Domain Awareness in the Indian Ocean Region. Acronym expansions of this kind appear regularly in one-mark questions, so it is worth writing the full form out once and recalling the first letters of each word in order.

The correct answer is Lokayan 2026. The release is headed with the name of this expedition and records that INS Sudarshini continues her voyage as part of it. During her port call at Livorno the Chief of the Italian Navy, Admiral Giuseppe Berutti Bergotto, visited the ship, the Commanding Officer called on Rear Admiral Alberto Tarabotto of the Italian Naval Academy, and the ship's officers met the Mayor of Livorno, Mr Luca Salvetti, and the Vice Prefect, Mr Edoardo Lombardi. A deck reception was held on board for senior Italian naval officers, local authorities and diplomatic representatives. Options A, B and D name other naval activities and are not connected with this voyage in the release. Candidates should tie the name of a ship to the name of the deployment or expedition it is on.

The correct answer is the Indian Navy, to replace Air Route Surveillance Radars at naval air stations. The release puts the Arudhra Radar in the Navy's list, together with the design, development and later purchase of Marine Gas Turbines, and says plainly that the radar will take the place of the existing Air Route Surveillance Radars. Option A sends the radar to the Army for artillery fire control, a task done by weapon locating and fire control radars that this release never names. Option C moves it to the Air Force, whose clearances in this meeting covered fighter, transport and helicopter capability along with the Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammer and the DEFSAC card system, not this radar. Option D brings in the Coast Guard, which the release does not mention. Pair the two Navy items in memory, Arudhra for surveillance and Marine Gas Turbine for propulsion.

The correct answer is F-2A. The announcement states that Japan is taking part with its F-2A fighter aircraft, while the Indian side has fielded a mix of front-line fighters, namely the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, the Su-30 MKI and the Rafale. Option B, the F-15J, is a fighter in Japanese service and therefore a very plausible distractor, but it is not the type named for this exercise. Option C, the F-35A, is a fifth generation aircraft that appears often in news about Japan, yet again it is not the aircraft listed for Veer Guardian-2026. Option D, the Mitsubishi T-4, is a trainer aircraft and not a front-line fighter, so it does not fit a combat drill of this kind. For revision, hold the four aircraft of this exercise together: Tejas, Su-30 MKI and Rafale for India, and the F-2A for Japan.

The correct answer is 2027. Both sides noted at the meeting that bilateral cooperation between India and Morocco is moving towards its seventieth anniversary in that year, and they agreed to expand defence ties ahead of the milestone. Option A is the year of the meeting itself, held on 8 September 2026, so an aspirant who reads the question in haste may pick it; the meeting year and the anniversary year are different facts. Option C and option D are years that simply do not appear in the announcement of the meeting, and neither matches the anniversary named there. The safe way to revise this story is to keep three years apart in the memory: the defence memorandum was signed during the Defence Minister's visit to Morocco in September 2025, the first Joint Defence Committee meeting fell in 2026, and the seventieth anniversary of cooperation arrives in 2027.

The correct answer is paper-based identity cards, passes and permits. DEFSAC stands for the Defence Forces Secure Access Card, and the release says it will replace the paper system now in use with interoperable smart cards that work on radio frequency identification. The word interoperable matters, because one card is then read at installations of all three Services rather than at one base alone. Option B names field radio sets, which belong to the communication programmes and not to this clearance. Option C names ration and canteen registers, a welfare and supply function that the release does not touch. Option D names night vision devices, which are surveillance equipment of a different kind. The item cleared alongside DEFSAC for the Air Force was the Ground-Based Multi-Purpose Jammer, meant to jam the radars of an adversary, and the two are often asked together.