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Economic Survey Reviewed PDF
Economic Survey Reviewed PDF
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Answer – c
• Gender Parity Index (GPI) in education is a valuable
indicator which reflects the discrimination against girls
in access to educational opportunities. In higher
education, gender disparities still prevail in enrolment for
which continuous efforts are being made by the Government
to improve net intake rate for women in higher education.
Gender Parity Index (GPI) is a socioeconomic index usually
designed to measure the relative access to education of
males and females. This index is released by UNESCO. In its
simplest form, it is calculated as the quotient of the number
of females by the number of males enrolled in a given stage
of education (primary, secondary, etc.)
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• India jumped thirty places to break into the top 100 for the
frst time in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report
(EODB), 2018
• India leaped 53 and 33 spots in the taxation and insolvency
indices, respectively, on the back of administrative reforms
in taxation and passage of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy
Code. It also made strides on protecting minority investors
and obtaining credit, and retained a high rank on getting
electricity, after a 70 spot rise in EODB,
2017 due to the government’s electricity reforms
• India continues to lag on the indicator on enforcing
contracts, marginally improving its position from 172 to
164 in the latest report, behind Pakistan, Congo and Sudan.
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Answer – a
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Answer – d
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Answer – a
• Revenue Neutral Rate RNR Committee had estimated a base
of Rs. 68.8 lakh crore and the GST Council had estimated a
base of Rs. 65.8 lakh crore. GST tax
base (excluding exports) is Rs. 65-70 lakh crore, broadly
similar to these two previous estimates
• The weighted average collection rate (incidence) is
about 15.6 percent. So, as estimated by the RNR
committee, the single tax rate that would preserve revenue
neutrality is between 15 to 16 percent
11 Which of the following states has the highest indirect tax base
under GST
a. Maharashtra
b. Madhya Pardesh
c. Uttar Pardesh
d. Tamil Nadu
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Answer – a
• In the run-up to the GST, there was anxiety amongst the
manufacturing states that the switch to a destination and
consumption-based tax would transfer the tax base toward
consuming states.
• State-wise share of the total GST base suggests that the top
states are Maharashtra (16 percent), Tamil Nadu (10
percent), Karnataka (9 percent), Uttar Pradesh (7
percent), and Gujarat (6 percent). So the biggest tax bases
still seem to be in the biggest producing states.
• It is true that the share of Maharashtra’s and Gujarat’s tax
base under the GST is lower than their share of
manufacturing. But because these two states also have a
signifcant presence in services, their tax base share remains
in line with their share of GSDP.
Answer – b
• Before the GST was introduced, it was expected that small
dealers who sell directly
to consumers would chose the composition scheme while
those who sell to bigger
companies would opt (or be forced) into regular registration,
because purchasing frms would not buy unless they could
get input tax credits
• Small B2C frms want to be part of the GST because they
buy from large enterprises. In fact, 68 percent of their
purchases are from medium or large registered enterprises,
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Answer – b
Five states—Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and
Telangana—in that order account for 70% of India’s exports
14 India’s internal trade is 60% of its total trade. Which state has
the largest trade surplus in inter-state trade?
a. Haryana
b. Maharashtra
c. Gujarat
d. Odhisa
Answer – c
Interstate trade
• The fve largest exporting states are Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
• The fve largest importing states are Maharashtra, Tamil
Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat
• The states with the largest internal trade surpluses are
Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.
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Answer – a
The growth is around 4 percentage points higher than
global growth average of last 3 years and nearly 3 percentage
points more than the average growth achieved by emerging
market & developing economies
Answer – a
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Answer – b
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Answer – a
• Facilitating “exit” has been one of India’s most intractable
challenges, evoking the generalization that over the last 50
years India had gone from “socialism with limited entry to
marketism without exit.” The IBC resolution process could
prove a valuable technology for tackling this long-standing
problem in the Indian corporate sector. The recently
proposed Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance
(FRDI) bill would do the same for fnancial frms.
• In the case of the TBS challenge, exit has proved
particularly intractable because the
objectives are many, conflicting, and politically diffcult.
Policymakers have had to fnd a way to reduce the debts of
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Answer – d
• Until now, no such analysis has been possible for India
because frm level export data
are diffcult to construct. (In principle, DGCIS and Customs
have these data but they have not been systematically
compiled or used by researchers.) However, with the new
GST data it is possible to construct frm-level exports.
• Export concentration by firms is much lower in India
than in the US, Germany, Brazil, or Mexico. For
example, top 1 percent of frms accounted for 72, 68, 67,
and 55 percent of exports in Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and
USA respectively but only 38 percent in the case of India
• There is one caveat which could help explain the atypical
Indian distribution: unlike in other countries, Indian
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Answer – d
• In India, government provides this for its employees, and
the Employees’ Provident
Fund Organization (EPFO) provides it to private sector
employees in respect of pensions and provident funds.
EPFO contribution is mandatory for industries employing
greater than 20 workers, and whose monthly wage/salary is
below Rs. 15,000. Above that level, contributions are
voluntary. Of the total active members (for whom the
monthly contribution is deposited by the employer), 86
percent earn less than Rs 15,000, and about 98 percent
have opted for a combination of the ‘provident fund-pension’
option.
• Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in respect of
medical benefts. ESIC contribution is mandatory for certain
frms, employing greater than 10 workers, and for workers in
these frms whose monthly wage/ salary is below Rs. 21,000.
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1. Education
2. Health
3. Electricity
Answer – c
“Less than 0.1 percent of frms accounting for about 14 percent of
turnover are in the social security net but not in the GST net.
These are mostly frms that are in GST-exempted sectors (such
as education, health, electricity), although there are many
frms that appear to be outside the GST even though they are in
the GST-included sectors.”
Answer - c
• About 0.6 percent of frms, accounting for 38 percent of total
turnover, 87 percent of
exports, and 63 percent of GST liability are what might be
called in the “hard core” formal sector in the sense of being
both in the tax and social security net.
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Answer – c
• Budget 2016-17 focused on the need to migrate from the’
disinvestment based approach’ to ‘investment based
approach’ for CPSEs. Accordingly, renaming the Department
as ‘DIPAM’ with expanded mandate denotes a paradigm
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Answer – c
• Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) bring in
diversity and effciency to the financial sector and make it
more responsive to the needs of the customers.
• Peer to Peer (P2P) and Account Aggregators are the new
categories of NBFC that have been introduced recently.
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Answer – c
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Answer – a
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Answer – b
Bank credit
lending to Services and Personal Loans (PL)
segments continue to be the major contributor
to overall NFC growth
Answer – b
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Answer – d
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Answer – a
A major driver of these good times, is “economic convergence,”
whereby poorer countries have grown faster than richer countries
and closed the gap in standards of living. The convergence
process has been broadening and accelerating for the last 20-30
years
Answer – a
India is one of the countries that has volunteered to take
part in the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) at the High-
Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2017. India presented its 1st VNR
on implementation of SDGs on 19th July, 2017 in the HLPF at
United Nations, New York. The VNR report is based on an
analysis of progress under various programmes and initiatives in
the country. The VNR report focused on 7 SDGs: 1 (No Poverty); 2
(Zero Hunger); 3 (Good Health and Well-Being); 5 (Gender
Equality); 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 14 (Life
below Water) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).
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b. 2 only
c. Both
d. None
Answer – a
• The reasons for the trap/stall were supposed to be twofold,
operating as a kind of pincer.
• On the one hand, as countries attained middle income
status, they would be squeezed out of manufacturing and
other dynamic sectors by poorer, lower-cost competitors.
• On the other hand, they would lack the institutional,
human, and technological capital to carve out niches
higher up the value-added chain.
• Thus, pushed from below and unable to grasp the top, they
would find themselves doomed to, well, middle income
status.
Answer – b
• In the light of the global SDG indicators endorsed by the UN
Statistical Commission,
the draft national SDG indicators are being developed by
Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation
with inputs from Central Ministries and various other
stakeholders and are now at an advanced stage of
fnalization.
• In the light of the global SDG indicators endorsed by the UN
Statistical Commission,
the draft national SDG indicators are being developed by
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Answer – a
• Basic gravity theory implies that smaller countries
tend to trade more than larger ones. A world made up of
two equal-size countries will experience more trade than a
world in which the larger country accounts for 95 percent of
world output. Over time, the world is becoming more equal
in the distribution of the underlying output. For example,
between 1970 and 2000, it was as if there were 7.0 – 7.5
equally sized countries trading with each other according to
the gravity model. Since 2000, as more countries have
started catching up with the rich, world output has become
more dispersed.
• But this globalization has led to a backlash in advanced
countries reflected in the decline in world trade-GDP ratios
since 2011
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Answer – d
• According to Census 2011, 377.1 million Indians
comprising 31.16 per cent of the country’s population
live in urban areas. India’s urban population is projected
to grow to about 600 million by 2031.
• In July, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Board of India
(SEBI) notifed a new regulatory framework - Issue and
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Answer – c
• Successful development requires two kinds of structural
transformations: 1) a shift of resources from low
productivity to high productivity sectors (as highlighted by
Sir Arthur Lewis); and 2) a larger share of resources devoted
to sectors that have the potential for rapid productivity
growth. In many cases, however, resources do not shift in
this way. They shift instead from informal, low productivity
sectors to ones that are marginally less informal/more
productive. These are cases of “thwarted structural
transformation”.
• There is a solid positive relationship, suggesting that richer
countries attained higher levels of peak manufacturing and
earlier in the development process. Thus China has lower
premature industrialisation than India, and both have
higher than US.
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Answer – d
• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)
scheme was launched in 2015 to achieve 100 per cent
village electrification
• Saubhagya scheme launched on 25th September, 2017, to
provide energy access to all by last mile connectivity and
electricity connections to all remaining unelectrifed
households in rural and urban areas to achieve
universal household electrifcation in the country.
Status of rural electrification
As of August 2017, about 1% of the villages in India remain un-
electrified (3,146 villages). However, with regard to households,
around 23% (4.1 crore households) are yet to be electrified.
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Answer – a
Answer – c
• Out of 18.1 crore rural households in the country, 14.2
crore (78%) rural households
have been electrified
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Answer – c
• Learning poverty headcount (LPC), which measures the
number of children who do not meet the basic learning
benchmark, has been possible through possible by the
Annual Survey of Education Reports (ASER) that have
over time tested a sample of children between the ages
of 5 and 16, residing in rural India. Students are tested
in terms of a set of tasks in reading and arithmetic, which
have remained constant over time
• There are no signifcant differences in the LPC for boys and
girls.
• It is sobering enough that learning poverty counts are
around 40 percent, roughly where India’s consumption
poverty numbers were in the 1970s. But if technology going
forward is going to be even more human capital intensive as
current trends suggest (dotted yellow line), the wedge
between the opportunities offered to the future labour force
and the capabilities to take advantage of them will widen
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Answer – a
• The poorest have been growing faster than lower
middle income countries, who have been growing faster
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Answer – c
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Answer – b
• Employee’s State Insurance (ESI), Act has been
extended to all 325 complete districts as well as 93
district headquarters area. The scheme is also partially
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Answer – a
• In the case of India, the gender gap in labour force
participation rate is more than 50 percentage points.
The lower participation of women in economic activities
adversely affects the growth potential of the economy
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46 Mahila-e-haat seeks to
a. Enhance health outcomes of women
b. Encourage women entrepreneurship
c. Protect women workers from exploitation at informal
workplaces
d. Make available agri loans to women farmers without having
land in their names
Answer – b
For economic empowerment of women through promoting the
spirit of creating selfemployment ventures, Mahila E-Haat, an
initiative for meeting aspirations and needs of women
entrepreneurs has been launched with the objective to
provide an e-marketing platform by leveraging technology for
showcasing product made/manufactured/sold by women
entrepreneurs/SHGs/NGOs.
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Answer – c
• As per the report ‘Women in Politics 2017 (IPU & UN)’ Lok
Sabha had 64 (11.8 percent of 542 MPs) and Rajya Sabha
had 27 (11 per cent of 245 MPs) women MPs.
• As on October 2016, out of the total 4118 MLAs across the
country, only 9 per
cent were women. Among the State assemblies, the highest
percentage of women MLAs were from Bihar, Haryana and
Rajasthan with 14 per cent followed by Madhya Pradesh
and West Bengal with 13 per cent and Punjab with 12 per
cent
• There are 13.72 lakh elected women representatives
(EWRs) in PRIs which constitute 44.2 percent of total
elected representatives (ERs) as on December, 2017.
Women sarpanchs (chairperson) accounted for 43 percent of
total gram panchayats (GPs) across the country, exhibiting
active leadership of women in local governments
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d. None
Answer – a
• Under Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation)
Act, 2010 and Clinical Establishments (Central
Government) Rules, 2012, the clinical establishments (in
the States / Union Territories where the Act is
applicable) shall charge the rates for each type of
procedure and services within the range of rates
determined by the Central Government from time to
time in consultation with the State Governments. The
clinical establishments are also required to display the rates
charged for each type of services provided and facilities
available, at a conspicuous place both in the local language
and English. The National Council for Clinical
Establishments has approved a standard list of medical
procedures and a standard template for costing of medical
procedures and shared the same with the States and UTs
• Act is applicable in 10 States/UTs, which needs to be
taken up by remaining States while ensuring strict
compliance as well.
Answer – c
• Policies related to housing need to recognize that India has
an increasingly fluid population. A successful housing
policy should enable horizontal or spatial mobility, namely
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Answer – c
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Answer – a
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Answer – c
National LED programme includes two components
a. Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LED for All (UJALA) providing
LED bulbs to domestic consumers with a target to replace
77 crore incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs.
Note : This programme has been recently emulated by
the Malaysia
b. Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) to replace
1.34 crore conventional street lights with smart and
energy efficient LED street lights by March 2019
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Answer – c
• Shipping is an important indicator of commodity trade of
any country. Around 95 per
cent of India’s trade by volume and 68 per cent in
terms of value is transported by sea
• ‘Jal Marg Vikas Project’ on National Waterways-I (NW-I)
in river Ganga, a large integrated IWT project, has been
launched between Varanasi and Haldia covering a distance
of 1380 kms at an estimated cost of `5369 crore.
It is being implemented with the financial and technical
support of the World Bank. The Project entails development
of fairway with 3 meters depth between Varanasi and
Haldia.
http://www.insightsonindia.com/2012/07/17/national-
inland-waterways-of-india-maps-and-details/
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Answer – c
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Answer – c
• India has improved its ranking in the “Logistics
Performance Index” (LPI) from 54 in 2014 to 35 in 2016
• Indian logistics industry is estimated to be worth around
US$ 160 billion in 2016-17
and has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
7.8 per cent over the past fve years. Considering the impact
of implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the
Indian logistics market is expected to reach about US$ 215
billion in 2019-20, growing at a CAGR of 10.5%.
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d. Agriculture
Answer – a
• The services sector accounted for two thirds of global
FDI stock in 2015, though a large part of this relates to
affliates of primary sector and manufacturing multinational
enterprises (MNEs) that perform services-like activities, and
fall under services as a default category.
• The share of services in total value of announced Greenfeld
projects increased to 58.2 per cent in 2016 from 54.1 per
cent in the previous year.
Answer – c
• The government’s campaign against illicit wealth over the
past few years—exemplified by demonetisation—has in
effect imposed a tax on certain activities, specifically the
holding of cash, property, or gold. Cash transactions have
been regulated; reporting requirements for the acquisition of
gold and property have been stiffened. In addition, rupee
returns to holding gold have plunged since mid-2016,
turning negative since mid-2017. In addition, previously,
stock prices had suffered because reporting requirements
were higher on shares than purchases of other asset. But
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Answer – a
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Answer – c
• Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for
all at all ages is essential to sustainable development
(SDG-3).
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Answer – a
• For leadership development and to address women’s
issues at village levels, Mahila Shakti Kendra scheme
has been launched at the village level. Over 300 thousand
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61 Which state has the highest net irrigated area to total cropped
area
a. Gujarat
b. Punjab
c. Uttar Pardesh
d. Kerala
Answer – c
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Answer – c
• India’s IT Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry
grew by 8.1 per cent in 2016-17 to US$ 139.9 billion
(excluding e-commerce and hardware) . IT-BPM exports
grew by 7.6 per cent to US$ 116.1 billion from US$ 107.8
billion during the same period. E-commerce market is
estimated at US$ 33 billion
• USA, UK and EU account for around 90 per cent of the
total IT-ITES exports. While, there are new challenges
surfacing in these traditional geographies, demand from
APAC, Latin America and Middle East Asia is growing and
new opportunities are emerging for expanding in continental
Europe, Japan, China and Africa.
• “To further promote this sector, many initiatives have been
taken. These include the establishment of BPO Promotion
and Common Services Centres to help create digital
inclusion and equitable growth and provide employment to
1.45 lakh persons, mostly in the small towns; setting up a
separate Northeast BPO promotion scheme as well”
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d. None
Answer – a
Answer – a
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Answer – c
As per the World Investment Report 2017 published by
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), following a surge in foreign investment in 2015, global
FDI flows fell by 2 per cent in 2016, to US $1.75 trillion, amid
weak economic growth. Global FDI flows are projected to increase
by about 5 per cent in 2017.
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a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both
d. None
Answer – c
• Government approved enhancement in buffer stock of
pulses from 1.5 lakh MT to 20 Lakh MT to enable effective
market intervention for moderation of retail prices.
Accordingly, a dynamic buffer stock of pulses of upto 20
lakh tonnes has been built under the Price
Stabilization Fund (PSF) Scheme through both domestic
procurement as well as imports. Of this, 3.26 lakh MT
has been released for market intervention and buffer
management.
• Pulses from the buffer are being provided to States/UTs for
PDS distribution, Mid-day Meal scheme, etc.
• In addition, pulses from the buffer are being utilized to meet
the requirement of pulses by Army and Central Para-
military Forces.
• Recently, it has also been decided that all
Ministries/Departments having schemes with a nutrition
component or providing food/catering/hospitality
services would utilize pulses from the Central buffer for
their operations.
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c. 1 and 3
d. All of them
Answer – d
• Export of edible oils was allowed only in branded consumer
packs of up to 5 kg. with
a minimum export price of USD 900 per MT.
• With a view to incentivizing domestic production this
restriction has been removed
on oil except for palm oil, mustard oil and sunflower
oil
Answer – b
• DALYs express the premature death and disability
attributable to a particular cause, and are made up of
two components: years of life lost (YLLs) and years of
life lived with disability (YLDs). YLLs measure all the time
people lose when they die prematurely, before attaining
their ideal life expectancy. Ideal life expectancy is based on
the highest life expectancy observed in the world for that
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Answer – c
• The price variations/fluctuations in items arising from
supply shocks during certain periods of the year are
characterized as seasonal in nature. General (Headline)
inflation is more volatile than core; it fluctuates more due to
large changes in the relative prices of certain food items
vulnerable to supply shocks.
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Answer – a
• Baltic Dry Index, a freight index and a good proxy for
the robustness of trade and shipping services which
fell from a peak of 11,793 on 20 May 2008 to a low of 663
on 8 December 2008 and was in the red at 290 on 11
February 2016, improved since then and was at 1,164 on
17 January 2018
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Answer – b
• Foreign exchange earnings of India from export of
satellite launch services increased noticeably.
• India’s share in global satellite launch services revenue
has also increased to 1.1 per cent in 2015-16 from 0.3
per cent in 2014-15. Antrix foresees greater utilization of
PSLV, GSLV and GSLV-Mk-III launch services by the
international community for launching their Low Earth orbit
(LEO) satellites.
• In Satellite Mapping, there has been a decline in the
foreign exchange earnings in recent years, primarily due
to free and open data policy adopted by many space
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Answer – c
• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when
microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and
parasites change in ways that render the medications
used to cure the infections they cause ineffective. It
occurs naturally but is facilitated by the inappropriate use
of medicines, for example using antibiotics for viral
infections such as cold or flu, or sharing antibiotics. Low-
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Answer – b
• It is implemented by Ministry of Drinking Water and
Sanitation
http://swachhbharatmission.gov.in/SBMCMS/about-us.htm
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Answer – c
• The first official housing price index for the country named
‘NHB RESIDEX’ was launched in July, 2007 by the National
Housing Bank (NHB). Overtime, the base year has been
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Answer – c
• The share of livestock in GVA in agriculture has been rising
gradually, the share of the crop sector in GVA has been on
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Answer – a
• In India, the Tourism sector has been performing well with
Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) growing at 9.7 per cent
to 8.8 million and Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) at
8.8 per cent to US$ 22.9 billion in 2016
• Outbound tourism has also picked up in recent years,
with the number of departures of Indian nationals from
India growing at 7.3 per cent during 2016 to 21.9
million from 20.4 million, in 2015. This is more than
double the foreign tourist arrivals in India
• Domestic tourist visits grew by 12.7 per cent to 1,614
million in 2016 from 1,432 million in 2015. In terms of
number of domestic tourist visits, Tamil Nadu, Uttar
Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka
were the top 5 destination States, accounting for 61.3 per
cent of total number of tourist visits in 2016.
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d. All of them
Answer – b
• Crop residue burning is a practice that came with
combine harvesters — machines that harvest, thresh and
clean the separated grain at one go. It takes barely an hour
and `1,000-1,500 to cover an acre of paddy using combines.
The same job through traditional sickle-harvesting and
manual threshing cum-cleaning requires about 10 men
working a full day, and costing `4,500 or upwards. But
combine-harvesting also leaves behind 14-15- inch long
stalks in the felds that farmers have to, then, fnd a way to
get rid of.
• According to a 2014 study by the Indian Agricultural
Research Institute (IARI), in 2008-09 the country generated
620 million tonnes of crop residue, of which around 16 per
cent was burnt on farms. Of which, 60 per cent was
paddy straw, whereas wheat accounted for just 22 per
cent. As per estimates, Punjab alone produces 19-20
million tonnes of paddy straw and about 20 million tonnes
of wheat straw. About 85-90 per cent of this paddy straw is
burnt in the feld, and, as the satellite images show, wheat
straw is also increasingly being burnt in recent years.
• In 2014, the Union government had released the
National Policy for Management of Crop Residue, which
NGT directed the states to implement. Under this policy
each state needs to have an action plan to stop residue
burning by involving people at different levels—from
communities to panchayats to state governments. It also
calls for a mechanism to alert to cases of crop burning.
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b. 2 only
c. Both
d. None
Answer – a
• The central and state governments spend on an average
15- 20 times more per capital than do RLGs. ULGs
spend about 3 times more.
• More importantly, this gap has persisted over time despite
per capita spending by RLGs increasing almost four-fold
since 2010-11
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Answer – d
• There are today more than 100,000 people with PhDs, who
were born in India but are now living and working outside
India (more than 91,000 in the U.S. alone). However, with
the strength of India’s economy and growing anti-immigrant
atmosphere in some Western countries, India has an
opportunity to attract back more scientists
• There are a number of government programs such as the
Ramanujan Fellowship
Scheme, the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired
Research (INSPIRE) Faculty Scheme and the
Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship, that provide avenues
to qualifed Indian researchers residing in foreign countries,
to work in Indian institutes/universities, and the Visiting
Advanced Joint Research Faculty Scheme (VAJRA).
There are many such schemes. Please go through the link below
http://www.dbtindia.nic.in/funding-mechanism/fellowships-for-
scientists/
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=77507
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Answer – c
• At the third tier, India’s rural local governments (RLGs)
stand out on both counts. RLGs’ reliance on own resources
is just 6 percent compared to 40 percent for third-tier
governments in Brazil and Germany
• India’s urban local governments (ULGs), meanwhile, are
much closer to international norms. Their own revenues
as a share of total revenues are actually higher than Brazil
and Germany, while their direct tax share (about 18 percent
of total revenues) is only marginally lower than Brazil (19
percent) and somewhat lower
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b. 2 only
c. Both
d. None
Answer – c
• While India’s patent applications and grants have
grown rapidly in foreign jurisdictions, the same is not
true at home.
• While Indian residents were granted over 5000 patents in
foreign offces in 2015, the number for resident flings in
India was little over 800. The decrease in grants could have
been due to a stricter examination process. But evidence
suggests that there is a severe backlog and high rate of
pendency for domestic patent applications. Reports indicate
that due to manpower shortages there is a backlog of almost
2 lakh patents pending examination.
82 Which state has the lowest share of serives sector in its GDP
a. Delhi
b. Sikkim
c. Bihar
d. Uttar Pardesh
Answer – b
• In terms of services GSVA share, Delhi and Chandigarh are
at the top with over 80 per cent share, while Sikkim is at
the bottom with 31.7 per cent share. In terms of services
GSVA growth, Bihar is at the top and Uttar Pradesh at the
bottom with 14.5 per cent and 7.0 per cent growth
respectively in 2016-17
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Answer – c
• Temperature increases have been particularly felt in the
North-East, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan and
Gujarat. Parts of India, for example, Punjab, Odisha and
Uttar Pradesh have been the least affected.
• In contrast, extreme defciencies are more concentrated in
Uttar Pradesh, North-East, and Kerala, Chattisgarh and
Jharkhand.
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a) 1 only
b) 2 only
c) 1 and 2 both
d) none
answer : b
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Answer – a
• As per the ILO’s estimates, among the top 15 economies,
the services sector accounted for more than two thirds
of total employment in 2016 in most of them except India
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and China, with India’s share of 30.6 per cent being the
lowest.
• While China had the highest increase in the share of
services employment (10.2 pp) during the period 2006
to 2016, increase in India was 5.2 pp
Answer – d
• Presently ISA has three programmes
a) Scaling Solar Applications for Agricultural Use,
b) Affordable Finance at Scale
c) Scaling Solar Mini-grids.
• In addition, ISA plans to launch two more programmes on
Scaling Solar Rooftops, and Scaling E-Mobility & Storage.
• Strategic and fnancial partnerships have been entered into
with the UNDP, the World Bank, EIB, EBRD and the
Climate Parliament to further the mandate of ISA.
• United Nations including its organs are ISA’s strategic
partners. ISA is also developing “Common Risk Mitigating
Mechanism” (CRMM) for de-risking and reducing the
fnancial cost of solar projects.
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Answer – a
• As part of the mission on strategic knowledge on climate
change, India has established 8 Global Technology Watch
Groups in the areas of Renewable Energy Technology,
Advance Coal Technology, Enhanced Energy Effciency,
Green Forest, Sustainable Habitat, Water, Sustainable
Agriculture and Manufacturing
• The mission is a sub part of National Action Plan on Climate
Change, which includes eight national missions covering
solar, energy effciency, agriculture, water, sustainable
habitat, forestry, Himalayan ecosystem and knowledge.
Answer – c
• There is varied susceptibility of different crops to
temperature and precipitation.
• The clear pattern that emerges is that crops grown in
rainfed areas— pulses in both kharif and rabi—are
vulnerable to weather shocks while the cereals—both rice
and wheat—are relatively more immune.
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Answer – d
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Answer – c
• The notion that growth is constrained by saving has a long
and illustrious pedigree going back to Ragnar Nurkse,
Arthur Lewis, Rosenstein-Rodan and others. But it is clear
that investment slowdowns are more detrimental to
growth than saving slowdowns, a conclusion that was
earlier reached by Rodrik. So, policy priorities over the
short run must focus on reviving investment.
• India’s investment decline seems particularly diffcult
to reverse, partly because it stems from balance sheet
stress and partly because it has been usually large.
Taken together, the results suggest a clear and urgent
policy agenda which the government has launched; frst with
the step-up in public investment since 2015-16; and now,
given the constraints on public investment with policies to
decisively resolve the TBS challenge.
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Answer – c
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Answer – c
• There is little data on how rural local governments (RLGs)
have fared over the past 25 years. There has been no
comprehensive survey of how RLGs have fulflled their
mandates.
• And the only database on the effectiveness of RLGs in
providing goods and services is the National Council of
Applied Economic Research’s (NCAER) Rural Economic
and Demographic Database (REDS), which has not been
updated since 2006-07
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Answer – d
Given the overwhelming reliance on devolved funds which, to a
large extent, are tied to sectors and schemes, it is not surprising
that gram panchayats (GP) spend the bulk of such funds on
earmarked areas, such as roads, other basic services, sanitation
and community assets.The spending on purely local public goods
like irrigation are not a priority out of such funds
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Answer – c
• Advanced countries collect a substantially higher proportion
of their taxes as direct taxes than do emerging
markets.Direct taxes account on average for about 70
percent of total taxes in Europe.
• The “aid” and “natural resource” curses illustrate what
happens when countries rely on non-tax sources of
government revenues: economic and institutional
development is stunted
Answer – c
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