The ninth edition of the India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime Exercise, IBSAMAR IX, concluded at Simon's Town, South Africa, on 20 October 2026, after ten days of joint activity across a harbour phase and a sea phase. India was represented by the frigate INS Tarkash. At the closing ceremony, her Commanding Officer described exercises of this kind as a way of "translating longstanding diplomatic relationships into meaningful naval cooperation".
That phrase is a good summary of what IBSAMAR is for. The exercise is the maritime arm of a diplomatic forum, and it makes more sense once the forum is understood.
Who sailed
The release names only the Indian ship. Defence press reporting and the exercise record give the wider order of battle:
| Navy | Ships and assets |
|---|---|
| India | INS Tarkash, a Talwar-class frigate, with an embarked Chetak helicopter |
| Brazil | BNS Barroso, a corvette, with a Lynx helicopter |
| South Africa | SAS Amatola, a Valour-class frigate; two Warrior-class inshore patrol vessels; the submarine SAS Manthatisi; with Gripen fighter support from the South African Air Force |
The training programme reported for the edition covered surface, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare, maritime interdiction, anti-piracy procedures and search and rescue. The presence of a submarine matters: anti-submarine work is the most demanding kind of naval cooperation, because the hunting ships must share sensor data and coordinate tightly against a target none of them can see.
Reports differ on the exact dates of the edition. The PIB release is the authority for the facts that are likely to be asked: ten days, concluded 20 October 2026, Simon's Town.
Harbour phase, sea phase
Most bilateral and multilateral naval exercises follow the same two-part shape, the same shape SLINEX follows with Sri Lanka.
The harbour phase comes first and is not ceremonial filler. It is where the navies agree communication plans and signal procedures, brief the serials, exchange liaison officers, cross-visit ships, and hold the professional discussions that make the sea phase safe. During IBSAMAR IX's harbour phase, the Chief of the South African Navy visited INS Tarkash.
The sea phase is where the planned evolutions happen: manoeuvres in formation, gunnery, air-defence serials against aircraft playing the enemy, anti-submarine searches, boarding drills and helicopter cross-deck operations. The test of the harbour phase is whether ships of three navies, built in three different traditions and speaking different working languages, can execute those serials together.
The release uses two words worth knowing. Interoperability is the ability of forces of different nations to operate together — common procedures, compatible communications, shared understanding. Jointmanship normally refers to cooperation among the services of a single country — army, navy and air force. The release uses it loosely, to mean the habit of working together at sea.
INS Tarkash
INS Tarkash is a Talwar-class stealth frigate, a modified version of the Russian Krivak III design. She was built at the Yantar Shipyard, Kaliningrad, and commissioned on 9 November 2012, the second of three ships of the class's second batch. She has become something of a regular on this route: the exercise record shows her in IBSAMAR VI (2018) and VII (2022) as well as IX, and she was the ship India sent to Mauritius earlier this year.
Her passage to the exercise was itself part of the deployment. Before reaching South Africa she sailed from Mombasa, Kenya, and made a port call at Victoria, Seychelles — the kind of sequence through the western Indian Ocean that combines training, presence and port diplomacy in a single voyage.
Nine editions
| Edition | Year | Location |
|---|---|---|
| I | 2008 | South Africa |
| II | 2010 | South Africa |
| III | 2012 | South Africa |
| IV | 2014 | Simon's Town |
| V | 2016 | Goa, India |
| VI | 2018 | Simon's Town |
| VII | 2022 | Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) |
| VIII | 2024 | Simon's Town |
| IX | 2026 | Simon's Town |
Three patterns stand out. The exercise is roughly biennial, with no edition between 2018 and 2022. South Africa has hosted nearly all of them, and Simon's Town the most. And the fifth edition, off Goa in 2016, is the one held in Indian waters — which makes "IBSAMAR V was held at Goa" a reliable statement, and "IBSAMAR IX was held at Goa" a reliable trap.
Why Simon's Town, and why the Cape matters
Simon's Town, on False Bay near Cape Town, is the principal base of the South African Navy. It sits near the Cape of Good Hope — and here the geography question an NDA paper can set: the conventional boundary between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans is not the Cape of Good Hope but the meridian of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, about 150 km to the south-east.
For the Indian Navy, the Cape is the far western edge of its area of interest. The sea lanes around southern Africa link the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, and they become critical whenever the Red Sea and Suez route is disrupted — as in 2024, when attacks on merchant shipping diverted a large share of Asia-Europe traffic around the Cape. An Indian frigate that trains regularly with the South African Navy is maintaining familiarity with waters it may one day need to operate in.
The forum behind the exercise
IBSAMAR is the maritime expression of the IBSA Dialogue Forum — India, Brazil and South Africa.
- Formalised by the Brasilia Declaration, adopted at a meeting of the three foreign ministers in Brasilia on 6 June 2003. The groundwork was laid when the three countries' leaders met on the sidelines of the G8 summit at Evian earlier that year.
- Identity: three large, multi-ethnic democracies, one on each of three continents — Asia, South America and Africa. The Brasilia Declaration's agenda included reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, social equity and inclusion, and the fight against racial discrimination.
- No headquarters and no permanent secretariat. IBSA works through summits, ministerial meetings and working groups.
- Three pillars: political coordination; trilateral sectoral cooperation; and development assistance to other countries through the IBSA Fund, managed by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation.
IBSA is older than BRICS as a functioning grouping, and all three members later joined BRICS — South Africa last, in 2010-11. The overlap is deliberate rather than redundant: BRICS includes China and Russia, while IBSA is a grouping of democracies with a shared interest in UN reform, which is a different conversation. India's own BRICS chairship this year culminated in the 18th BRICS summit at New Delhi. IBSAMAR is IBSA's most visible practical output, and one of the few in the military domain.
Where IBSAMAR fits in India's exercise calendar
The Indian Navy runs a dense calendar of bilateral and multilateral exercises, and the NDA paper tests the pairing of an exercise with its partners. This month alone has included KONKAN with the United Kingdom, held off Plymouth, and AUSTRAHIND with Australia on land. The maritime pairings worth holding in memory:
- IBSAMAR — India, Brazil, South Africa (trilateral)
- Malabar — India, United States, Japan, Australia
- Varuna — France
- KONKAN — United Kingdom
- SLINEX — Sri Lanka
- SIMBEX — Singapore
- JIMEX — Japan
- AUSINDEX — Australia
IBSAMAR is the one that links India to the South Atlantic, which no other regular Indian naval exercise does.
🔑 Revision block
- The event: IBSAMAR IX concluded at Simon's Town, South Africa, on 20 October 2026, after ten days (harbour and sea phases).
- India: INS Tarkash — Talwar-class frigate (modified Krivak III), built at Yantar, Kaliningrad, commissioned 9 November 2012; also in IBSAMAR VI and VII.
- Brazil: corvette BNS Barroso. South Africa: frigate SAS Amatola, two Warrior-class patrol vessels, submarine SAS Manthatisi, SAAF Gripens.
- Training: surface, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare; interdiction; anti-piracy; SAR.
- Editions: first 2008; roughly biennial; V (2016) at Goa is the edition held in India; most in South Africa.
- Simon's Town: principal South African naval base, False Bay; the Atlantic-Indian Ocean boundary is conventionally at Cape Agulhas, not the Cape of Good Hope.
- IBSA: Brasilia Declaration, 6 June 2003; three democracies on three continents; no HQ or permanent secretariat; IBSA Fund managed by UNOSSC.
- Interoperability = ability of different nations' forces to operate together.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. IBSAMAR is a maritime exercise involving the navies of: (a) India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (b) India, Brazil and South Africa (c) India, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (d) India, Brunei and Singapore
→ (b) The name is an abbreviation of India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime; the first edition was held in 2008.
Q2. The ninth edition of IBSAMAR concluded in October 2026 at: (a) Goa (b) Rio de Janeiro (c) Durban (d) Simon's Town
→ (d) Simon's Town, the South African Navy's principal base on False Bay, has hosted most editions.
Q3. India was represented at IBSAMAR IX by: (a) INS Tarkash (b) INS Vikrant (c) INS Kolkata (d) INS Sudarshini
→ (a) INS Tarkash, a Talwar-class frigate, also took part in the 2018 and 2022 editions.
Q4. INS Tarkash was built at: (a) Mazagon Dock, Mumbai (b) Garden Reach Shipbuilders, Kolkata (c) Yantar Shipyard, Kaliningrad (d) Cochin Shipyard, Kochi
→ (c) She is one of the Talwar-class frigates built in Russia, commissioned at Kaliningrad in November 2012.
Q5. The IBSA Dialogue Forum was formalised through the: (a) Brasilia Declaration of 2003 (b) Pretoria Declaration of 2006 (c) New Delhi Declaration of 2008 (d) Evian Declaration of 2003
→ (a) The three foreign ministers adopted the Brasilia Declaration on 6 June 2003; the leaders had met at the G8 summit in Evian earlier that year.
Q6. Which of the following statements about the IBSA Dialogue Forum is correct? (a) It has a permanent secretariat in New Delhi. (b) It has no headquarters or permanent secretariat. (c) Its secretariat rotates annually among the three capitals. (d) Its secretariat is located at the UN headquarters.
→ (b) IBSA works through summits, ministerial meetings and working groups; only the IBSA Fund is administered through a UN office.
Q7. The only edition of IBSAMAR held off the Indian coast was the: (a) first edition, 2008 (b) third edition, 2012 (c) seventh edition, 2022 (d) fifth edition, 2016
→ (d) IBSAMAR V was held off Goa in February 2016; the others have been held in South African waters.
Q8. The conventional boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean is drawn at: (a) Cape Agulhas (b) Cape of Good Hope (c) Cape Comorin (d) Cape Horn
→ (a) Cape Agulhas is the southernmost point of Africa; the Cape of Good Hope lies to its north-west.
Q9. The IBSA Fund, which supports development projects in other developing countries, is managed by the: (a) World Bank (b) New Development Bank (c) UN Office for South-South Cooperation (d) Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
→ (c) The UNOSSC acts as the Fund's manager and secretariat.
Q10. In the context of military exercises, "interoperability" refers to: (a) the use of identical weapons by all participants (b) the ability of forces of different nations to operate together effectively (c) the transfer of ships from one navy to another (d) command of all participating forces by a single nation
→ (b) Interoperability means compatible procedures, communications and understanding — not identical equipment or unified command.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Military exercises are among the most frequently asked topics in the NDA GAT, and the questions are overwhelmingly of one kind: match the exercise to its partners.
The first form is the partner question. "IBSAMAR is conducted among..." with four sets of three countries as options. The distractors usually swap one country — India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka; India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia — so knowing the full name rather than the initials is what protects you.
The second is the match-the-following set: four exercises against four partners. IBSAMAR, Varuna, KONKAN and SLINEX would make a typical grid, and the trilateral is often the one candidates miss.
The third is the forum question, which reaches past the exercise to IBSA itself: the Brasilia Declaration, the year 2003, the absence of a permanent secretariat. A statement that IBSA has a secretariat at New Delhi is false.
A fourth, occasional and geographical, is the Cape question — where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean, or the southernmost point of Africa. Cape Agulhas is the answer to both, and the Cape of Good Hope is the distractor.
For the SSB lecturette or group discussion on India's maritime strategy, the useful point is that India's naval partnerships now reach well beyond its immediate neighbourhood. IBSAMAR is a link to the South Atlantic and to two fellow democracies of the Global South, and it gives the Indian Navy regular practice in waters that matter whenever the Red Sea route is closed.
Preparing for NDA? Keep a running table of every exercise with its partner countries and service — it answers more GAT questions than any other single current-affairs list. Build the base with our NDA study material, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and train with serving-standard faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Maj Sunil Chopra — Co-founder & defence faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.