First BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise: Why a Bay, Not a Border, Defines This Group

India hosted the first BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise from 30 October to 3 November 2026 at Sri Vijaya Puram in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with all seven member countries taking part. It was run by the Andaman and Nicobar Command.

BIMSTEC appears in current affairs constantly and gets confused with SAARC almost every time. One idea separates them, and it also explains why India keeps investing in this one.

The Hinge: A Group Defined by a Bay, Not by a Border

Almost every regional grouping is drawn around a landmass. BIMSTEC is drawn around a body of water — the Bay of Bengal. Its full name says so: the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation.

That single design choice does two things at once. It brings in Myanmar and Thailand, which are in Southeast Asia and are not in SAARC. And it leaves out Pakistan and the Maldives, which have no Bay of Bengal coastline. A grouping defined by a coastline cannot be blocked by a country that does not have one.

This is why the SAARC-versus-BIMSTEC comparison is asked so often. SAARC has not held a summit since 2014 because India and Pakistan cannot agree; BIMSTEC has kept meeting. The lesson is not that one body is better than the other, but that the membership rule decides what a body can do.

Jargon, Defined Once

• Multi-sectoral — the group works across many separate fields at once (trade, security, energy, connectivity) rather than on one subject.
• Charter — the founding legal document of an organisation. BIMSTEC ran for twenty-seven years on a declaration before its Charter came into force.
• Maritime domain awareness — simply knowing what is happening at sea: which ships are where, and which of them should not be.
• HADR — Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, the military’s role after a cyclone, tsunami or earthquake.

How BIMSTEC Grew, and Why Its Name Keeps Changing

The name is a history lesson in itself, and this sequence is directly askable.

Memory trick for the seven members: five from South Asia — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka — and two from Southeast Asia — Myanmar and Thailand. Five plus two.

The Structure, and the Row That Explains This Week

Since 2021 BIMSTEC’s work has been organised into seven sectors, with one member country leading each. The table is pure marks, and one row explains why India hosted this exercise:

India leads the Security sector. So the first maritime security exercise being hosted by India, in Indian waters, under an Indian command, is not a coincidence — it is the sector lead doing its job. That one connection turns two separate facts into one you cannot forget.

• Secretariat: Dhaka, Bangladesh, set up in 2014.
• Secretary General: Indra Mani Pandey of India, the fourth, since 4 January 2024.
• Charter: entered into force on 20 May 2024 — twenty-seven years after the group was founded.
• Latest Summit: the 6th Summit at Bangkok in April 2025, chaired by Thailand, which adopted Bangkok Vision 2030.
• Weight: about 1.7 billion people, roughly 22 per cent of the world’s population, and a combined GDP of about USD 5 trillion.

The Exercise Itself

The drill ran in two parts: three days of tabletop exercises — planning on paper and on screens — followed by a two-day harbour phase alongside the jetty. It was deliberately not a live firing exercise; the aim was coordination and interoperability, which is what navies that have never worked together need first.

The subjects covered were the ones that actually occupy navies in the Bay of Bengal: maritime domain awareness, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, cross-border maritime crime and marine pollution. Ships from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand took part, with Bhutan and Nepal represented as landlocked members.

Two facts about the venue are worth more than the exercise. Sri Vijaya Puram is the new name of Port Blair, renamed in September 2024. And the Andaman and Nicobar Command is India’s only tri-service theatre command — army, navy and air force under one commander — which is exactly why a joint exercise with six other countries was run from there.

Why a Reader Should Care

Regional organisations are a guaranteed block in General Awareness, and BIMSTEC is the one India talks about most. The reliably asked facts are the founding year and declaration, the seven members, the Dhaka secretariat, the sector India leads and the SAARC comparison. For the wider list see our capsule on international organisations and their headquarters.

It pairs naturally with two recent explainers: the International Solar Alliance, which is the other body India drives and which also waited years for its agreement to come into force, and the eight Next-Generation Corvettes, because a navy that is buying more small ships is a navy planning to be present in waters like these.

The geography is in our capsule on India’s location and extent — the Andaman and Nicobar Islands sit astride the Ten Degree Channel, which is one of the busiest shipping approaches in the region. India’s claim to a seat at the Bay of Bengal table is, in the end, an island group.

Today’s Static GK capsule is on the Mughal Empire, and the two posts meet on exactly this water. The Mughals ruled the richest coast in Asia and never built a sea-going navy to match their armies — which is how the sea around Bengal passed to others. Four centuries later, India is running exercises to make sure it does not happen twice.

What Is Not Settled

Two honest notes. This was a first edition, built around tabletop and harbour phases rather than sea manoeuvres, so it is a beginning rather than a demonstration of combined capability. And published accounts differ slightly on whether Nepal and Bhutan joined in February or July 2004; what is settled is that the renaming to BIMSTEC happened at the First Summit on 31 July 2004.

Practice Questions

Q1. BIMSTEC was established in 1997 by which declaration?
(a) The Colombo Declaration (b) The Dhaka Declaration (c) The Bangkok Declaration (d) The Kathmandu Declaration
Answer: (c) The Bangkok Declaration It was signed on 6 June 1997, and the group was then called BIST-EC after its four founding members.

Q2. Which two BIMSTEC members are not part of South Asia?
(a) Myanmar and Thailand (b) Thailand and Malaysia (c) Myanmar and Indonesia (d) Thailand and Singapore
Answer: (a) Myanmar and Thailand Five of the seven are South Asian, and including these two is what separates the grouping from SAARC.

Q3. The permanent secretariat of BIMSTEC is located at
(a) Kathmandu (b) New Delhi (c) Bangkok (d) Dhaka
Answer: (d) Dhaka It was established there in 2014, while the organisation itself dates from 1997.

Q4. Which sector of BIMSTEC cooperation is led by India?
(a) Security (b) Connectivity (c) Trade, Investment and Development (d) Science, Technology and Innovation
Answer: (a) Security That is precisely why the first BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise was hosted in Indian waters under an Indian command.

Q5. The first BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise was held at
(a) Visakhapatnam (b) Kochi (c) Chennai (d) Sri Vijaya Puram
Answer: (d) Sri Vijaya Puram The venue is the renamed Port Blair, and the host was the Andaman and Nicobar Command, India’s only tri-service theatre command.

30-Second Revision

• The hinge: BIMSTEC is defined by a bay, not a region, so it includes Myanmar and Thailand and excludes Pakistan. That is why it keeps meeting while SAARC has not held a summit since 2014.
• Founded 6 June 1997 by the Bangkok Declaration as BIST-EC; Myanmar joined that December; Nepal and Bhutan in 2004; renamed BIMSTEC on 31 July 2004. Seven members: five South Asian plus Myanmar and Thailand.
• Secretariat Dhaka (2014); Secretary General Indra Mani Pandey of India since January 2024; Charter in force 20 May 2024; 6th Summit, Bangkok, April 2025, chaired by Thailand, adopting Bangkok Vision 2030. Seven sectors — India leads Security.
• The exercise: first ever, 30 October to 3 November 2026, at Sri Vijaya Puram (the renamed Port Blair), run by the Andaman and Nicobar Command, with tabletop and harbour phases covering HADR, maritime crime and marine pollution.

Sources

• The BIMSTEC Secretariat’s own website — the founding date of 6 June 1997 and the Bangkok Declaration, the BIST-EC and BIMST-EC stages, Myanmar’s admission on 22 December 1997, the 2004 admissions and the renaming at the First Summit on 31 July 2004, the Dhaka secretariat of 2014, and the seven sectors with their lead countries.
• Ministry of External Affairs, Brief on BIMSTEC — the Charter’s entry into force on 20 May 2024, Thailand as chair, Secretary General Indra Mani Pandey from 4 January 2024, and the population and GDP figures.
• Reporting of the first BIMSTEC Maritime Security Exercise (30 October to 3 November 2026) — the venue at Sri Vijaya Puram, the Andaman and Nicobar Command as host, the participating navies and coast guards, and the tabletop and harbour phases. A PIB release was not available for this item, so the detail is from the exercise reporting and is flagged as such.
• The renaming of Port Blair to Sri Vijaya Puram was announced in September 2024 and notified in the Gazette.