UPSC Political Science & IR 2026 — Paper II

(a) 'Comment' on a specific claim: that criticism of the institutional approach in comparative politics arrived in successive waves, not as one attack. The answer must therefore periodise the critique (behavioural, Marxist/political-economy, new-institutionalist self-critique, post-colonial/informal-institutions), not merely list defects of legal-formal institutionalism. (b) A 150-word conceptual note on 'extractive capitalism': define it, locate it theoretically (extractive institutions, accumulation by dispossession, neo-extractivism, rentier/resource-curse literature), give concrete cases and state its political consequences. (c) 'Discuss the various methods' - the question asks specifically for the DEVICES or techniques by which balance of power is created and maintained, not for a definition essay or an evaluation. A brief definition then the classical Morgenthau methods plus modern additions is what earns marks. (d) A conceptual note on clientelism (printed as 'Clientilism'): define the patron-client linkage and its defining properties, distinguish it from programmatic politics and from plain corruption, name the core scholarship, and illustrate it - Indian illustration is strongly expected in this paper. (e) Two variables are named and both must be addressed: the role of TECHNOLOGY and the role of IDENTITY in how defensive realism is conceptualised. The honest answer is asymmetric - technology is constitutive through the offence-defence balance, while identity enters only obliquely through perceptions, intentions and state 'types', and is the point at which constructivists attack defensive realism.

• Roy Macridis, The Study of Comparative Government (1955)
• Behavioural revolution; David Easton; Almond and Powell's structural-functionalism
• March and Olsen, 'The New Institutionalism' (1984) / Rediscovering Institutions (1989)
• Hall and Taylor (1996): historical, rational-choice and sociological institutionalism
• Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In (1985)
• Informal institutions - Helmke and Levitsky (2004); O'Donnell on illusions about consolidation (1996)
• Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail (2012) - extractive vs inclusive institutions
• David Harvey, accumulation by dispossession (The New Imperialism, 2003)
• Resource curse (Auty, 1993) / Paradox of Plenty (Terry Lynn Karl, 1997) / rentier state (Beblawi and Luciani)
• Neo-extractivism and the 'commodities consensus' (Gudynas, Svampa)
• An Indian statutory/judicial anchor: PESA 1996, Forest Rights Act 2006, Niyamgiri (Orissa Mining Corporation v. MoEF, 2013)
• Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) for data extractivism
• Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations - methods: divide and rule, compensations, armaments, alliances
• Partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) as compensation
• Buffer state and the 'holder of the balance'/balancer - Britain in the nineteenth century
• Kenneth Waltz - internal balancing (capabilities) vs external balancing (alliances)
• Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (1987) - balance of threat; bandwagoning
• NATO (1949) and Warsaw Pact (1955) as alliance balancing
• Patron-client dyad; contingency and monitoring as the defining mechanism
• James C. Scott, 'Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia' (1972)
• Kitschelt and Wilkinson (2007) - clientelistic vs programmatic citizen-politician linkage
• Susan Stokes, 'Perverse Accountability' (2005) - vote buying and monitoring
• Indian anchor: vote bank (M.N. Srinivas, 1955) / Kanchan Chandra's patronage democracy (2004) / Partha Chatterjee's political society (2004)
• Robert Jervis, 'Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma' (World Politics, 1978) - offence-defence balance and distinguishability
• Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (1979) - security, not power, is the end
• Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War (1999) and the 'cult of the offensive'
• Charles Glaser - security-seeking vs greedy states; Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire (1991)
• Contrast with Mearsheimer's offensive realism (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2001)
• Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It' (1992) for the identity critique

(a) Two directives, both compulsory: (i) DISCUSS the factors driving the changing nature of the state in contemporary industrial (advanced capitalist) societies, and (ii) EXPLAIN the impact of that change. An answer that only lists causes, or only describes the welfare state, loses half the paper. (b) 'Comment' on the proposition that the international human rights regime is captive to inter-state politics. This requires a two-sided treatment: substantiate the claim with the institutional and case evidence of selectivity, veto politics and non-ratification, then qualify it by showing where the regime has independent effect, and reach a judgement. (c) 'Elaborate' a two-pillar proposition about diplomacy: institutional memory (the ministry, archives, codified practice, professional cadre) and individual craft (the negotiator's skill, judgement and personal authority). Both pillars must be developed separately, their interaction shown, and the claim tested against contemporary pressures.

• Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (1996); Linda Weiss, The Myth of the Powerless State (1998)
• R.A.W. Rhodes, 'the hollowing out of the state' (1994); government to governance
• Philip Cerny's 'competition state'; Giandomenico Majone's 'regulatory state'
• Gosta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990); Paul Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State? (1994)
• Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973); Manuel Castells, network society
• Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (1973) and James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (1973)
• Return of the state: 2008 crisis, COVID-19, US CHIPS and Science Act (2022) and Inflation Reduction Act (2022)
• Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (2004)
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948; eight abstentions (Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, South Africa)
• ICCPR and ICESCR, 1966 (in force 1976) - the Cold War division of rights
• Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, 1993 - universal, indivisible, interdependent
• Human Rights Council established 2006, replacing the Commission on Human Rights; Universal Periodic Review
• Rome Statute of the ICC, 1998, in force 1 July 2002; non-parties include the US, China, India and Russia
• Responsibility to Protect - 2005 World Summit Outcome, paragraphs 138-139; UNSC Resolution 1973 (2011) on Libya
• Bangkok Declaration 1993 and the 'Asian values' debate
• Keck and Sikkink's boomerang model; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink's spiral model; Sikkink's justice cascade
• Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 (in force 1964); Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963
• Congress of Vienna, 1815 - codification of diplomatic ranks and practice
• Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy (1939) - qualities of the ideal diplomat
• Ernest Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice (1917)
• A named negotiator as evidence of craft - Talleyrand / Bismarck / Kissinger (shuttle diplomacy 1973-74) / Holbrooke (Dayton 1995)
• Old versus new diplomacy; Wilson's 'open covenants openly arrived at' (Fourteen Points, 1918)

(a) The question asserts that NATO faces 'transactional coercion from its own biggest member' (the United States) and asks what future the alliance has. The answer must establish NATO's basis and record, analyse the burden-sharing and credibility crisis, and then argue a reasoned set of futures. A sharp answer also corrects the premise - NATO is a collective DEFENCE alliance, not a collective security system. (b) 'Elucidate' a meta-theoretical claim: that IR theories claiming objectivity necessarily carry subjective bias. The answer must explain the positivist objectivity claim, then demonstrate bias through at least three critical traditions (critical theory, feminist, post-colonial/Global IR), and close with what follows - reflexivity rather than nihilism. (c) A yes/no analytical question requiring a verdict. State power transition theory accurately (Organski), apply each of its components - hierarchy, parity, dissatisfaction, war risk - to the US-China case, present the evidence that does not fit, and answer the question asked.

• North Atlantic Treaty, 4 April 1949, Washington; twelve founding members; 32 members today
• Article 5 - invoked only once, after 11 September 2001; Article 4 consultations
• Finland acceded 4 April 2023; Sweden acceded 7 March 2024
• Wales Summit 2014 Defence Investment Pledge (2 per cent of GDP); The Hague Summit 2025 target of 5 per cent by 2035 (3.5 per cent core plus 1.5 per cent defence-related)
• 2022 Madrid Strategic Concept - Russia the most significant and direct threat; China a systemic challenge
• Macron's 'brain death' comment (2019); EU Strategic Compass (2022); PESCO; Germany's Zeitenwende
• Collective defence versus collective security distinction
• Robert Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders' (Millennium, 1981) - 'theory is always for someone and for some purpose'; problem-solving vs critical theory
• J. Ann Tickner's feminist reformulation of Morgenthau's principles (1988); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (1989)
• Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)
• Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, Non-Western International Relations Theory (2010); Acharya's 'Global IR'
• Stanley Hoffmann, 'An American Social Science: International Relations' (1977)
• Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It' (1992)
• The fact-value dichotomy and the positivist claim to value-freedom
• A.F.K. Organski, World Politics (1958) - power transition theory; hierarchy rather than anarchy
• Organski and Kugler, The War Ledger (1980)
• Satisfied versus dissatisfied challenger; war risk maximal at parity/overtaking
• Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? (2017)
• China overtook the US in GDP at purchasing power parity around 2014; nominal GDP still substantially lower
• South China Sea arbitral award, 12 July 2016, rejected by China; Belt and Road Initiative (2013); AIIB
• Counter-arguments: nuclear deterrence, economic interdependence, the peaking-power thesis (Brands and Beckley, 2022)

(a) 'Elaborate' a prescriptive claim: that the Quad's summit-driven, informal mode is inadequate and a more robust architecture is needed. The answer must trace the Quad's evolution, identify the specific weaknesses of summit-dependence, name the current challenges, and propose concrete institutional design - a diagnosis without proposals is incomplete. (b) 'How did CMEA reflect the geo-political division of the world during the Cold War?' - the demand is not a description of Comecon but an argument that its origin, membership, operating principles, external trade pattern and collapse mapped the bipolar divide. Facts about Comecon must be marshalled as evidence of division. (c) Two explicit sub-parts: (i) WHAT is UNCLOS - identify it with its negotiation, adoption and entry into force; and (ii) EXPLAIN its salient features - the maritime zones with their exact limits, the regimes governing each, the Area as common heritage, and dispute settlement. Both parts must appear; the zone limits are the heart of the marks.

• 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami core group; Shinzo Abe's 'Confluence of the Two Seas' speech to the Indian Parliament, August 2007
• Australia's withdrawal in 2008; revival at Manila, November 2017; first foreign ministers' meeting 2019
• First leaders' summit (virtual) 12 March 2021; Washington September 2021; Tokyo May 2022; Hiroshima May 2023; Wilmington September 2024
• Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), announced 2022; Quad Vaccine Partnership (2021); Critical and Emerging Technology working group
• Absence of a secretariat, charter, budget or treaty basis
• India outside AUKUS (2021) and outside the IPEF trade pillar; ASEAN centrality
• Malabar exercise - Australia rejoined in 2020; India's foundational agreements LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018), BECA (2020)
• Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA/Comecon), founded January 1949, Moscow
• Founding members: USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania; Albania 1949; East Germany 1950; Mongolia 1962; Cuba 1972; Vietnam 1978
• Response to the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Programme, 1948) and the OEEC; the 1947 refusal of Marshall aid by Poland and Czechoslovakia under Soviet pressure
• Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labour (1962); Romania's resistance; Comprehensive Programme for Socialist Economic Integration (1971)
• Transferable rouble; International Bank for Economic Co-operation (1963); Druzhba oil pipeline (1964)
• Warsaw Pact (1955) as the military counterpart to NATO (1949); Brezhnev Doctrine (1968)
• Dissolution of Comecon, 28 June 1991
• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted 10 December 1982, Montego Bay; in force 16 November 1994
• Territorial sea 12 nautical miles (Article 3) with innocent passage; contiguous zone 24 nautical miles (Article 33)
• Exclusive Economic Zone 200 nautical miles (Articles 55-75)
• Continental shelf (Article 76) - 200 nm, up to 350 nm or 100 nm beyond the 2,500 m isobath; Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
• The Area as common heritage of mankind (Article 136); International Seabed Authority
• Part XV dispute settlement - ITLOS (Hamburg), ICJ, Annex VII arbitration
• Transit passage through international straits; archipelagic sea lanes passage
• Illustration: Bangladesh v. India Bay of Bengal award, 7 July 2014; South China Sea award, 12 July 2016

(a) 'Describe India's objections' - the answer must set out India's specific negotiating grievances at the WTO on agriculture: the structural asymmetry of the Agreement on Agriculture, the frozen 1986-88 external reference price, the unresolved public stockholding question, the demand for a Special Safeguard Mechanism, and the defence of Special and Differential Treatment. It is India's positions, not a general account of the WTO, that earn marks. (b) The question asks what STRATEGIC OPTIONS India can exercise in response to Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions. A brief statement of the sources of that tension is needed as context, but the bulk of the answer must be a set of distinct, argued policy options with their trade-offs. (c) The question specifies a number: discuss THREE areas of India-Israel security co-operation. The answer must identify three distinct domains - not three weapons - and substantiate each with named platforms, agreements or mechanisms. Answering with one area, or with an undifferentiated list, loses marks. (d) 'Discuss the main features' of the India-Bangladesh land boundary agreement. This is a precision question: the 1974 agreement and its 2011 protocol, the constitutional amendment that operationalised it in 2015, the exchange of enclaves, adverse possessions, the un-demarcated stretches and the citizenship option are the features that carry marks. (e) 'Analyse the relevance' of India-Brazil economic co-operation for strengthening bilateral relations. The answer must go beyond describing trade: it must argue why economic ties matter as ballast for a relationship without geographic proximity or security interdependence, evidence this with trade, energy and investment specifics, and identify the constraints.

• Agreement on Agriculture, in force 1 January 1995; three pillars - market access, domestic support, export competition
• Amber Box / Aggregate Measurement of Support; de minimis 10 per cent for developing and 5 per cent for developed members; Green Box (Annex 2) and Blue Box
• External reference price fixed at the 1986-88 base period, not inflation-adjusted
• Public stockholding; National Food Security Act, 2013; Bali 'peace clause' (MC9, December 2013) and the General Council decision of 27 November 2014
• Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) and Special Products; the G-33 coalition
• Special and Differential Treatment; Doha Development Agenda (2001); MC13, Abu Dhabi (2024) ended without an agriculture outcome
• Durand Line (1893) - never accepted by any Afghan government, including the Taliban
• Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan sanctuaries; Pakistani cross-border strikes; Torkham and Chaman closures; deportation of Afghan refugees; the October 2025 border clashes
• India's technical mission reopened in Kabul, June 2022, restored to embassy status in October 2025; engagement without recognition
• Chabahar port - ten-year Shahid Beheshti terminal agreement signed 13 May 2024; INSTC
• Afghan-India Friendship Dam (Salma Dam), inaugurated 2016; Zaranj-Delaram highway; Afghan Parliament building
• UN Security Council Resolution 2593 of 30 August 2021, adopted under India's presidency
• Regional formats: Moscow Format; Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan, November 2021
• Diplomatic relations established 29 January 1992; strategic partnership 2017
• Barak-8 / MRSAM co-developed by DRDO and Israel Aerospace Industries
• Phalcon AWACS on IL-76; Heron and Searcher UAVs; Harop loitering munitions; SPICE-2000 guided bombs
• Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism (2000); intelligence and homeland-security co-operation
• Space and surveillance: PSLV launch of TecSAR (2008); RISAT-2 from IAI; CIBMS-linked border sensing
• India's de-hyphenated policy and continued support for a two-state solution
• Indira-Mujib Land Boundary Agreement, 16 May 1974; Protocol of 6 September 2011
• Constitution (One Hundredth Amendment) Act, 2015; amended the First Schedule for Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura; exchange effective 31 July 2015
• 111 Indian enclaves (about 17,160 acres) to Bangladesh; 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (about 7,110 acres) to India
• Adverse possessions regularised - approximately 2,777 acres to India and 2,268 acres to Bangladesh
• 6.1 km of un-demarcated boundary in three sectors: Daikhata-56 (West Bengal), Muhuri River/Belonia (Tripura), Lathitila-Dumabari (Assam)
• Right of choice of citizenship for enclave residents (about 51,500 people: 37,334 in Indian enclaves in Bangladesh, 14,215 in Bangladeshi enclaves in India)
• India-Bangladesh land boundary length 4,096.7 km - India's longest land border
• Strategic partnership since 2006; diplomatic relations since 1948; July 2025 state visit and the US$20 billion trade target for 2030
• India-MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement - signed 25 January 2004, in force 1 June 2009, narrow tariff-line coverage
• Trade composition - Indian petroleum products, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals; Brazilian crude, soya and vegetable oils, sugar, gold, cotton
• Global Biofuels Alliance, launched at the G20 New Delhi Summit, 9 September 2023, with India, Brazil and the United States as founding members
• ONGC Videsh participation in Brazilian offshore hydrocarbon blocks
• PSLV launch of Brazil's Amazonia-1 satellite, 28 February 2021
• Multilateral convergence: BRICS, IBSA (Brasilia Declaration, 2003), G4, BASIC, WTO agricultural coalitions

(a) 'Analyse' a two-part proposition: that accelerating Chinese influence is reshaping South Asia's geopolitics, and that this constitutes a major foreign-policy challenge for India. The answer must map Chinese penetration country by country and instrument by instrument, explain why it is structurally reshaping the region, assess India's responses, and evaluate how far the challenge is externally imposed or self-inflicted. (b) 'Critically evaluate the important factors' in India-Maldives relations at the sixty-year mark of diplomatic ties. The answer must identify the structural factors - geostrategic location, security co-operation, economic and development dependence, domestic politics and the China variable - and evaluate them, including the 2023-24 downturn and the subsequent reset, rather than narrating a chronology. (c) Two linked demands: treat the India-EU free trade agreement - described by the President of the European Commission as 'the mother of all deals' - as a transformative milestone, and then ELABORATE on the new India-EU Security and Defence Partnership. The defence and security partnership is the explicitly named sub-part and must be developed at length, not mentioned in passing.

• Belt and Road Initiative (2013); China-Pakistan Economic Corridor announced 2015; Gwadar port
• Hambantota port, ninety-nine-year lease to a Chinese operator, December 2017; Colombo Port City; Chinese survey vessels in Sri Lankan waters
• Nepal's BRI framework agreement (2017) and the cooperation framework of December 2024; trans-Himalayan connectivity
• Maldives-China free trade agreement (2017); withdrawal of Indian military personnel completed May 2024; China-Maldives agreements of 2024
• Doklam standoff (2017) and its bearing on the Siliguri corridor; China-Bhutan boundary talks and the 2021 three-step roadmap
• China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and Kyaukphyu port; China as Bangladesh's largest arms supplier
• India's responses: Neighbourhood First; SAGAR (2015) and MAHASAGAR (2025); BIMSTEC and BBIN; Colombo Security Conclave; Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region; the 2022 assistance package to Sri Lanka
• 'String of Pearls'; blocking of 1267 Committee listings at the UN Security Council
• Maldives independence 26 July 1965; diplomatic relations established 1 November 1965 - sixty years in 2025
• Operation Cactus, November 1988 - Indian intervention against the coup attempt on President Gayoom
• Defence co-operation framework (2016); Ekuverin bilateral exercise; Dosti trilateral coast guard exercise; Colombo Security Conclave; coastal radar network
• Withdrawal of Indian military personnel completed in May 2024, replaced by civilian technicians
• 'India Out' campaign; election of President Mohamed Muizzu in 2023; the January 2024 remarks and Lakshadweep tourism episode
• Greater Male Connectivity Project; Hanimaadhoo airport; Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital; currency swap and financial assistance from 2024; July 2025 prime ministerial visit - new line of credit and launch of FTA talks
• Maldives-China free trade agreement (2017) and the 2024 China-Maldives partnership and defence agreements; Maldivian external debt distress
• Geostrategic position on the Eight Degree and One and a Half Degree Channels
• 'The mother of all deals' - the European Commission President's description of the India-EU free trade agreement
• FTA negotiations resumed June 2022; the earlier Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement negotiations lapsed in 2013
• The EU is India's largest trading partner in goods
• Issues in the negotiation: CBAM and the EU Deforestation Regulation; Mode 4 movement of professionals; data adequacy; automobile, wine and dairy tariffs; investment protection (carried into a separate parallel negotiation)
• India-EU Trade and Technology Council, established 2022
• India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, announced at the G20 New Delhi Summit, 9 September 2023
• Security and Defence Partnership content: maritime security and EU NAVFOR Atalanta co-operation, counter-terrorism, cyber and hybrid threats, space security, transnational crime and crisis management, maritime domain awareness, defence-industrial co-operation
• EU Indo-Pacific strategy (2021); India-EU Connectivity Partnership (2021)
• India-EU Security and Defence Partnership signed 27 January 2026 at the 16th EU-India Summit (Kallas-Jaishankar); first Security and Defence Dialogue, New Delhi, 6 March 2026

(a) Three compulsory parts: (i) HOW illegal cross-border migration challenges India's security; (ii) the STEPS taken by the government; and (iii) an assessment of their EFFECTIVENESS. All three must be present and the third - a candid evaluation of what has and has not worked - is where most candidates lose marks. (b) 'Comment' on the claim that Kachchatheevu remains intractable in India-Sri Lanka relations. The answer must establish the island's status and the 1974 and 1976 agreements precisely, explain the legal and constitutional controversy, identify why the issue persists - fishermen's arrests and Palk Bay resource depletion rather than territory as such - and offer a realistic way forward. (c) 'Discuss' the proposition that India has adopted multi-alignment to serve its core values and interests. The answer must define multi-alignment and distinguish it from non-alignment and from strategic autonomy, evidence it across simultaneous and overlapping partnerships, identify the values and interests it serves, and assess its costs and limits.

• Assam Accord, 15 August 1985; cut-off date 24 March 1971; Section 6A of the Citizenship Act
• Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India (2005) - IMDT Act struck down; illegal migration described as 'external aggression' under Article 355
• Assam NRC final list, 31 August 2019
• India-Bangladesh border 4,096.7 km - India's longest land boundary; India-Myanmar border 1,643 km
• Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS); BOLD-QIT riverine surveillance in the Dhubri sector
• Free Movement Regime with Myanmar - decision to curtail it and to fence the border (2024)
• Foreigners Act, 1946; Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025; Foreigners Tribunals; Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019
• Coordinated Border Management Plan with Bangladesh (2011); Border Area Development Programme; Vibrant Villages Programme (2023; VVP-II for other land borders, 2025)
• India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no domestic refugee law
• Kachchatheevu - uninhabited island in the Palk Strait, about 285 acres, near Rameswaram; St Antony's Church and the annual festival
• India-Sri Lanka agreement of 1974 (Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike) placing the island on the Sri Lankan side of the boundary in historic waters
• The 1976 agreement on the Gulf of Mannar and Bay of Bengal boundary, which barred fishing in each other's EEZ and historic waters
• Berubari Union advisory opinion (1960) - cession of territory requires a constitutional amendment; the contrary Union position that the boundary was disputed
• Pending Supreme Court petitions; Tamil Nadu Assembly resolutions seeking retrieval; the controversy during the 2024 general election campaign
• Bottom trawling by Tamil Nadu mechanised boats and depletion of Palk Bay stocks; arrests of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy
• Joint Working Group on Fisheries (2016); deep-sea fishing conversion scheme for Palk Bay trawlers
• Multi-alignment versus non-alignment; strategic autonomy; issue-based coalitions
• Panchsheel (1954), Bandung (1955), Non-Aligned Movement founded at Belgrade (1961); NonAlignment 2.0 (2012)
• S. Jaishankar, The India Way (2020) and Why Bharat Matters (2024)
• Simultaneous membership of the Quad, the SCO (full member since 2017), BRICS and RIC
• S-400 contract with Russia (2018) despite CAATSA; LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018), BECA (2020) with the United States
• Abstentions on UN resolutions on Ukraine (2022); 'this is not an era of war'; increased Russian crude purchases after 2022
• IMEC announced at the G20 New Delhi Summit (September 2023); INSTC; India outside RCEP and outside the IPEF trade pillar
• Galwan (June 2020) as the test case of alignment without guarantees

(a) Two compulsory parts: (i) CRITICALLY EVALUATE India-Russia relations in the twenty-first century - strengths, erosion and asymmetries; and (ii) explain HOW BOTH countries have responded to American interference in that relationship in recent times. Part two requires the responses of Delhi AND Moscow, not only India's. (b) 'Comment' on the claim that India reads West Asia not as a single contest but as overlapping rivalries, bargains and anxieties. The answer must first demonstrate the plurality of the region's fault-lines, then show how Indian policy is correspondingly plural - de-hyphenated, issue-based and simultaneous - with concrete partnerships, and assess the limits of that approach. (c) 'Examine' India-South Africa co-operation through BOTH bilateral and multilateral forums - the structure of the answer is dictated by the question. Each channel must be substantiated with named agreements, institutions and instances, and the examination must include divergences, not only convergences.

• Declaration on Strategic Partnership, October 2000; upgraded to 'Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership' in 2010; annual summit mechanism
• S-400 Triumf contract, October 2018; CAATSA (2017) sanctions threat
• BrahMos joint venture (1998); first export order to the Philippines
• Kudankulam nuclear power plant; AK-203 facility at Korwa, Amethi; licensed Su-30MKI and T-90 production
• ONGC Videsh in Sakhalin-1, Vankorneft and Taas-Yuryakh; post-2022 discounted Russian crude making Russia India's largest crude supplier
• Severe bilateral trade imbalance; rupee-rouble and vostro-account settlement problems; INSTC; Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor
• Russia's growing dependence on China after February 2022; falling Russian share of Indian arms imports
• Indian abstentions on UN resolutions on Ukraine; refusal to join the sanctions regime; the August 2025 US oil-linked tariff penalty, October 2025 sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, and the February 2026 India-US trade framework
• De-hyphenation of Israel and Palestine; the July 2017 visit to Israel and the separate February 2018 visit to Palestine
• India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, signed February 2022, in force May 2022; comprehensive strategic partnership
• India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council (2019); long-term LNG contract with Qatar
• Chabahar Shahid Beheshti terminal, ten-year agreement signed May 2024; INSTC; end of Indian crude imports from Iran in 2019 under US sanctions
• Abraham Accords, September 2020 (UAE and Bahrain, later Morocco and Sudan); Saudi-Iran normalisation brokered by China, March 2023
• I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, United States), launched 2022; India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at the G20, September 2023
• Roughly nine million Indians in the Gulf; dependence on West Asian crude and LNG; Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb sea lanes
• Evacuation operations - Operation Raahat (Yemen, 2015), Operation Kaveri (Sudan, 2023), Operation Ajay (Israel, 2023), Operation Sindhu (Iran and Israel, 2025)
• Gandhi in South Africa from 1893; Natal Indian Congress (1894)
• India severed trade relations with South Africa in 1946 and raised apartheid at the first UN General Assembly; support for the African National Congress; Bharat Ratna to Nelson Mandela (1990); relations restored 1993
• Red Fort Declaration on Strategic Partnership (1997); Tshwane Declaration (2006); Joint Ministerial Commission
• BRICS - South Africa's accession and the 2023 Johannesburg expansion summit; New Development Bank and its Africa Regional Centre in Johannesburg
• IBSA Dialogue Forum - Brasilia Declaration, June 2003; the IBSA Fund
• Joint India-South Africa TRIPS waiver proposal at the WTO (October 2020); the limited MC12 decision (June 2022)
• African Union admitted to the G20 at the New Delhi Summit, September 2023; consecutive Indian, Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies (South Africa 2025, the first in Africa)
• IBSAMAR trilateral naval exercise (since 2008); Indian Ocean Rim Association (founded 1997)
• Divergence: South Africa follows the Ezulwini Consensus on UNSC reform, not the G4 model