Japan Credit Rating Agency Upgrades India to 'A-', Outlook Stable

The correct answer is A-. The agency moved both the long-term foreign currency issuer rating and the long-term local currency issuer rating up by exactly one notch, from BBB+ to A-, and kept the outlook at stable. Option A, A+, is two notches above the new rating and was not awarded; a single-notch move from BBB+ cannot reach it. Option C, AA-, is higher still and belongs to a different rating band altogether. Option D, BBB, is below the rating India already held, so it would have been a downgrade rather than an upgrade. Note also that the country ceiling, which is a separate measure, was raised by one notch to A, one step above the new sovereign rating. Candidates should hold the two apart: A- is the issuer rating and A is the ceiling that applies to borrowers inside the country.

The correct answer is 4.4 per cent. JCR noted that the Centre's fiscal deficit came down from 4.7 per cent in FY25 to 4.4 per cent in FY26, and that this happened while capital spending was kept high, with infrastructure investment given particular weight. That combination, a smaller deficit without cutting productive spending, is what the agency described as an improvement in the quality of fiscal expenditure. Option C, 4.7 per cent, is the figure for the earlier year, FY25, and is the most common trap in this question. Options A and B do not appear in the release at all. It is worth remembering the growth figure alongside the deficit: real GDP grew 7.8 per cent in FY26 and held the same pace in the first quarter of FY27, so the deficit fell in a year when the economy was also expanding strongly.

The correct answer is the Asian Development Bank. It is a multilateral development bank that lends to its member countries; it is not a credit rating agency and assigns no sovereign ratings, so it cannot appear in this list. The release names three agencies that upgraded India over the preceding year. Morningstar DBRS acted first, in May 2025. S&P Global Ratings followed in August 2025. Rating and Investment Information, Inc., which like JCR is based in Japan, upgraded India in September 2025. The Japan Credit Rating Agency's move is therefore the fourth such decision in roughly a year, which is why the release presents it as evidence of a steady strengthening of India's economic fundamentals rather than a one-off judgement. Options A, B and C are all named in the release and are all genuine rating agencies.

The correct answer is the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. JCR pointed to three things behind the better asset quality of Indian banks: the establishment of this Code, the capital the Government infused into banks, and stronger supervision by the Reserve Bank of India. It added that capital adequacy and profitability in banking have stayed sound, and that asset quality and capital adequacy in the non-banking financial sector have improved as well, which strengthens the financial system as a whole. Option B, the Companies Act, governs how companies are incorporated and run and was not cited here. Option C, the Competition Act, deals with anti-competitive conduct and combinations, a different subject entirely. Option D, the Foreign Trade Policy, concerns exports and imports. Only the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is named in the release in connection with bank asset quality.