How many days of wage employment in a financial year does MGNREGA guarantee to a rural household?

The correct answer is C, 2,500 rupees. Under the Regional Connectivity Scheme called UDAN, which stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik and was launched in 2016, the fare on a subsidised seat is capped at about 2,500 rupees for an hour of flight on a fixed-wing aircraft, and the difference between that fare and the cost of operation is met by viability gap funding paid from a levy on other routes. The purpose is to put unserved and underserved airstrips in smaller towns back into use. Options A, B and D are wrong because each changes the capped figure; 1,500 and 2,000 are below the cap and 3,000 above it, and a question of this type is set precisely to see whether the figure has been learnt exactly. Remember the scheme as a triple: the year 2016, the expansion Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik, and the fare cap of 2,500 rupees an hour.

The correct answer is D, the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana. In 1989 the National Rural Employment Programme of 1980 and the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme of 1983 were brought together into a single wage employment programme named the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, which was run through the panchayats and remained the main rural employment programme of the early 1990s. Option A is wrong because the Indira Awas Yojana was a rural housing scheme, begun as a part of this very programme and later made independent; housing is not employment. Option B is wrong in a subtle way: the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme was the other scheme that went into the merger, not the scheme that resulted from it, and the question asks what the National Rural Employment Programme was merged into. Option C is wrong because the Employment Assurance Scheme came later, in 1993, for the agricultural lean season in backward blocks.

The correct answer is A, 2020-21. The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2 October 2014, and its rural wing completed the first phase of toilet building with the declaration of open defecation free villages in 2019. The second phase began in 2020-21 with the wider aim of open defecation free plus villages, which means sustaining the gains and adding the management of solid and liquid waste, greywater and plastic. Option B is wrong because 2019-20 is the year in which the first phase was wound up rather than the year the second began. Option C is wrong because 2018-19 falls in the middle of the first phase, when toilet coverage was being pushed to completion. Option D is wrong because 2021-22 is the second year of the new phase. Fix three dates for this mission: launch in 2014, open defecation free declaration in 2019 and Phase 2 from 2020-21.

The correct answer is C, 18 to 40 years. The Atal Pension Yojana, launched in 2015 and administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, is open to a bank account holder between 18 and 40 years of age, who contributes until the age of 60 and then draws a guaranteed monthly pension of between one thousand and five thousand rupees, the amount depending on the chosen pension level and the age of joining. The upper limit of 40 exists because the scheme requires a minimum of twenty years of contribution. Options A and B are wrong because they narrow the band at both ends and would shut out the youngest and the older entrants whom the scheme is meant to reach. Option D is wrong because 40 to 60 inverts the rule: 60 is the age at which the pension begins, not an age of entry, so nobody can join at 60.

The correct answer is C, Article 47. It places on the State the duty to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and to improve public health, and a health assurance scheme such as Ayushman Bharat, which gives a cover of five lakh rupees a family a year for hospital treatment, is an attempt to carry out that direction. Option A is wrong because Article 48 deals with the organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and with the prohibition of the slaughter of cows and draught cattle. Option B is wrong because Article 46 requires the State to promote the educational and economic interests of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections. Option D is wrong because Article 45, as it now stands, concerns early childhood care and education for children below the age of six, the age group left outside Article 21A.