SAARC, ASEAN and BIMSTEC: Regional Groupings with PYQs

The correct answer is D, Addu City. The seventeenth SAARC summit was held in November 2011 at Addu City in the Maldives, the country's second largest urban area, on Addu Atoll in the far south of the chain, and its theme was building bridges. Option A is wrong because Male is the capital of the Maldives and hosted an earlier SAARC summit, which is why it is the strongest distractor here; the Maldives has hosted the summit more than once and the venue in 2011 was deliberately moved away from the capital. Option B is wrong because Dhaka hosted the very first summit in 1985, at which the SAARC Charter was adopted, and also a later one. Option C is wrong because Colombo in Sri Lanka has hosted SAARC summits of its own but not the seventeenth. The eighteenth summit, in 2014, was held at Kathmandu.

The correct answer is B, 1985 at Dhaka. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation came into being on 8 December 1985, when the heads of state and government of seven South Asian countries adopted its Charter at the first summit in Dhaka; the proposal had been made by President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh at the start of the decade, and 8 December is observed as SAARC Charter Day. Option A is wrong because 1983 is the year of the New Delhi declaration on South Asian regional cooperation, a preparatory step by the foreign ministers rather than the founding. Option C is wrong because 1987 is the year the SAARC Secretariat was opened at Kathmandu, on 16 January, a fact often swapped with the founding. Option D is wrong because Colombo hosted later summits and is not connected with the founding year.

The correct answer is B, Kathmandu. The SAARC Secretariat was established at Kathmandu in Nepal on 16 January 1987 and is headed by a Secretary-General chosen from the member states in turn; it coordinates the work of the technical committees and the regional centres. Option A is wrong because Dhaka is the city of the first summit of 1985 and is also the seat of the BIMSTEC Secretariat, which makes it the most likely wrong choice here. Option C is wrong because Colombo has hosted summits and is the headquarters of none of the three main groupings in this chapter. Option D is wrong because New Delhi hosts the South Asian University, opened in 2010 as a SAARC institution, and hosted the fourteenth summit in 2007 at which Afghanistan was admitted, but not the Secretariat. Remember Kathmandu for SAARC, Jakarta for ASEAN and Dhaka for BIMSTEC.

The correct answer is B, Afghanistan. SAARC began with seven members, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan was admitted as the eighth member at the fourteenth summit held in New Delhi in 2007, making it the only country to have joined the grouping after its founding. Option A is wrong because Myanmar is an observer at SAARC, and is instead a full member of BIMSTEC, which it joined in 1997. Option C is wrong because Mauritius is also an observer at SAARC, besides being the seat of the Indian Ocean Rim Association at Ebene. Option D is wrong because Iran is an observer and has sought membership without obtaining it. The list of observers, which includes China, Japan, the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Australia as well, is the set these three distractors come from.

The correct answer is A, the Bangkok Declaration. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was created on 8 August 1967 by the Bangkok Declaration, also called the ASEAN Declaration, signed by the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand; 8 August is observed as ASEAN Day. Option B is wrong because Jakarta is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat but not the city of the founding declaration, and the two facts are deliberately mixed in option sheets. Option C is wrong because Manila has given its name to other agreements of the region and hosted later ASEAN summits. Option D is wrong because Singapore, although a founder, is associated with the ASEAN Declaration of Concord of a later period and with the secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Note also that BIMSTEC was founded in 1997 by a Bangkok Declaration of its own.

The correct answer is B, Jakarta. The ASEAN Secretariat has been at Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, since 1976, and it supports the summits, the ministerial councils and the three community pillars into which the grouping's work was organised in 2015. Option A is wrong because Bangkok is the city where the founding declaration of 1967 was signed, and this is the commonest confusion in the chapter: founded at Bangkok, housed at Jakarta. Option C is wrong because Manila has hosted summits but holds no permanent organ of the grouping. Option D is wrong because Kuala Lumpur hosted the first East Asia Summit in 2005 and the summit of 2022 at which the admission of Timor-Leste was agreed in principle, but the Secretariat has never been there. India became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992 and a strategic partner in 2012.

The correct answer is A, Dhaka. The BIMSTEC Secretariat was opened at Dhaka in Bangladesh in 2014, seventeen years after the grouping was created by the Bangkok Declaration of 6 June 1997. Option B is wrong because Kathmandu is the seat of the SAARC Secretariat and also hosted a BIMSTEC summit, which makes it the strongest distractor. Option C is wrong because Bangkok is where the founding declaration was signed, and Thailand leads the connectivity sector, but the permanent office is not there; the same founded-here, housed-there pattern appears with ASEAN. Option D is wrong because Colombo hosted the fifth summit in 2022, at which the BIMSTEC Charter was adopted, and Sri Lanka leads the science, technology and innovation sector, but it holds no secretariat. BIMSTEC has seven members, five from South Asia and two from Southeast Asia.

The correct answer is C, Pakistan. BIMSTEC has seven members: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, of which five are in South Asia and two in Southeast Asia. Pakistan is a member of SAARC but not of BIMSTEC, which is the main reason India has given the Bay of Bengal grouping greater weight since the SAARC summit process stalled after Kathmandu in 2014. Option A is wrong because Nepal joined in 2004, along with Bhutan, and leads the people-to-people contact sector. Option B is wrong because Bhutan joined in the same year and leads the environment and climate change sector. Option D is wrong because Myanmar joined in December 1997, turning BIST-EC into BIMST-EC, and leads the agriculture and food security sector. Note also that the Maldives, a SAARC member, is not in BIMSTEC either.

The correct answer is B, 1 January 2006. SAFTA was signed at the twelfth SAARC summit held at Islamabad in 2004 and came into force on 1 January 2006, replacing the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement, which had been signed in 1993 and had come into force in 1995. Option A is wrong because 2004 is the year of signature, not of entry into force, and the two-year gap between them is exactly what this question tests. Option C is wrong because 2007 is the year Afghanistan was admitted to SAARC at the New Delhi summit, a different landmark of the same decade. Option D is wrong because 2010 is the year the South Asian University opened at New Delhi as a SAARC institution. Keep the pairs apart: SAPTA signed 1993 and in force 1995, SAFTA signed 2004 and in force 2006.

The correct answer is B, Tashkent. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, created at Shanghai in 2001 out of the Shanghai Five of 1996, keeps its Secretariat at Beijing and its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, usually shortened to RATS, at Tashkent in Uzbekistan, where it coordinates intelligence and joint exercises against terrorism, separatism and extremism. Option A is wrong because Beijing holds the Secretariat, the other of the two seats, and the question is built on the pair. Option C is wrong because Astana in Kazakhstan hosted the summit of 2017 at which India and Pakistan were admitted as full members, having been observers until then. Option D is wrong because Moscow, although Russia is a founder, holds neither organ. For Indian papers the two facts to keep are the 2017 accession at Astana and the split of the two seats between Beijing and Tashkent.