Which edition of SLINEX was held in September 2026?

The correct answer is Sri Lanka. SLINEX is the bilateral maritime exercise held between the Indian Navy and the Sri Lanka Navy, and its name itself is formed from the two countries. The 13th edition, SLINEX-26, was conducted from 17 to 21 September 2026 and concluded at Visakhapatnam, with a harbour phase of professional exchanges and cross-deck visits followed by a sea phase of coordinated manoeuvres, air operations, night replenishment at sea and Special Forces drills. Option A, Bangladesh, is wrong because the exercise India conducts with the Bangladesh Navy carries a different name and did not feature in this release. Option C, Maldives, is wrong for the same reason; no Maldivian participation was reported in this exercise. Option D, Indonesia, is wrong because the release describes SLINEX strictly as an India-Sri Lanka bilateral activity, with no third navy taking part. The Ministry of Defence connected the drill to the MAHASAGAR vision and the Neighbourhood First policy.

The correct answer is Visit, Board, Search and Seizure. The release lists VBSS among the Special Forces drills carried out in the sea phase of SLINEX-26, along with slithering operations. VBSS is the standard boarding procedure by which a naval team stops a suspicious vessel, goes aboard, searches it and, where the law allows, seizes it, and it is the core skill in anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations in the Indian Ocean Region. Option B, Vessel Berthing and Safety Standards, is invented and describes harbour regulation rather than a naval drill. Option C, Visual Beacon Signalling System, is a made-up equipment name and not a Special Forces activity. Option D, Vertical Boarding and Sea Survey, mixes two unrelated ideas and does not appear in the release. The sea phase also covered coordinated manoeuvres, air operations and replenishment at sea carried out at night.

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 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 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.