Indian Economy Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Nagaland had the highest growth rate in 1981-91.

It recorded about 56 per cent for the decade, against a national 23.9 per cent. Such a figure reflects migration and enumeration issues as much as natural increase; Nagaland's 2001-11 count actually showed a fall.

Answer: B

The ARDC is now part of NABARD.

The Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation was merged into the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development when it began operations on 12 July 1982, along with the RBI's agricultural credit departments.

Answer: A

The State Bank of India has the most branches.

It operates some 22,000 branches, the largest network of any bank in the world, together with a very large number of ATMs and business correspondents. Its reach into rural India is a legacy of the nationalisation of 1955.

Answer: D

Inflation can be checked if all of these hold.

Deficit financing raises money incomes without raising output, and the excess demand shows up as inflation. If the spending goes into projects that increase supply, or if it merely repays debt without adding to demand, the inflationary pressure is contained.

Answer: D

Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

He received it in 1998 for contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for showing that famines arise from a loss of entitlement to food rather than from its absence. Har Gobind Khorana won in medicine and C.V. Raman in physics.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Services

Services account for over half of India’s GDP, well ahead of industry and agriculture. Agriculture still employs the largest share of the workforce, which is why its contribution to output and to employment differ so sharply.

Answer: B

The National Renewal Fund was set up in 1992.

It was created to cushion the labour consequences of liberalisation: retraining and redeployment of workers displaced by industrial restructuring, and compensation for those taking voluntary retirement in public sector units.

Answer: A

The primary deficit is Rs 50,000 crore.

\[\text{Primary deficit} = \text{Fiscal deficit} - \text{Interest payments}\]

\[= 75{,}000 - 25{,}000 = 50{,}000\ \text{crore}\]

It measures the government's borrowing requirement excluding the burden of past debt, and so shows how much of the deficit is due to current decisions.

Answer: A

True. India is the largest producer of sponge iron in the world.

Sponge iron, or direct reduced iron, is made by reducing iron ore with coal or gas without melting it, and is used as feedstock in electric furnaces. India's abundant iron ore and non-coking coal made the coal-based route economic here, and it overtook all other producers in the early 2000s.

Answer: B

It began in 2006.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed in 2005 and the scheme launched on 2 February 2006 in 200 districts, extending nationwide by 2008. It guarantees a hundred days of unskilled wage employment a year to every rural household that demands it.