International Relations Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 21)

Correct because India joined the SCO as a full member in 2017 and Farkhor in Tajikistan is India’s only military facility abroad, but the TAPI pipeline is not yet operational and has faced repeated delays.

IORA’s home page, read on 8 October 2026, counts 23 Member States and 12 Dialogue Partners. Its member and partner pages list the same totals. These counts change with time. An IORA site showed 21 members and 7 partners in 2017. In November 2018 IORA reported 22 members and nine partners.

The IORA pages say IORA was formally launched at the first Ministerial Meeting in Mauritius. An older IORA site dates that meeting 6 to 7 March 1997. IORA’s current page says it was established on 7 March 1997. The first name was the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation, written IOR-ARC. President Mandela of South Africa inspired the idea in 1995. The launch itself was in Mauritius.

BIMSTEC was originally called BIST-EC, an acronym of its four founding members (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand). It bridges South Asia and Southeast Asia, linking five South Asian nations with two Southeast Asian ones.

BIMSTEC operated for 25 years without a founding charter. Member states finally adopted the BIMSTEC Charter in 2022, at the Fifth Summit in Colombo, giving the group international legal personality for the first time.

BIMSTEC has seven members. Nepal and Bhutan joined in 2004, taking the group from five to seven members and prompting its renaming to BIMSTEC.

BIMSTEC was founded in June 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration, initially as BIST-EC with four members: Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

During the 1994 genocide, no Indian national was killed or injured, and the Indian government’s evacuation of its nationals to Bujumbura and Nairobi went uninterrupted.

India was Rwanda’s second-largest foreign investor in 2024, after China, committing US $445.1 million — a sharp rise from US $175.2 million in 2023, when India had actually ranked first.

The First JTC session established a structured mechanism to review bilateral trade and investment, identifying critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, digital technologies, agriculture, and renewable energy as priority sectors.

India’s own resident High Commission in Kigali only opened on 15 August 2018 — nearly two decades after Rwanda opened its Mission in New Delhi in 1999.

PM Modi made India’s first-ever State visit to Rwanda on 23-24 July 2018, during which eight agreements were signed, including a Defence Cooperation MoU.

She linked this to India’s own ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ vision, of becoming a developed nation by 2047.

She met the Prime Minister separately at Victoria Palace, to discuss trade, clean energy, and connectivity.

An ICCR Chair of Indian Studies was also established at the University of Bucharest during the visit.

Over 16,000 Indian students study in Uzbekistan, mostly in medical colleges. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 Uzbek officials, professionals, and students have benefited from India’s ITEC training and scholarship programmes.

India and Uzbekistan declared their Strategic Partnership in 2011, nearly two decades after establishing diplomatic relations.

Piyush Goyal called for doubling bilateral trade within three years. He urged businesses from both countries to co-invest, co-manufacture, and co-innovate.

Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov called on President Murmu, as part of a four-day official visit to India. The two sides discussed political dialogue and trade cooperation.

India and Uzbekistan established diplomatic relations in 1992, through a protocol signed in Tashkent. India had recognised Uzbekistan’s independence a few months earlier, in December 1991.

Both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in railways, UAVs, SJ-100 regional planes, and critical minerals.