In which year was NABARD established?

The correct answer is B, 12 percent. India's literacy rate at independence in 1947 is put at about 12 per cent.

Colonial education reached only a thin urban layer, and the figure for women was far lower, around six per cent. The first census after independence, in 1951, recorded 18.33 per cent literacy, and the number has climbed steadily since: 28.3 per cent in 1961, 52.2 per cent in 1991 and 74.04 per cent in the census of 2011. Kerala has long stood first among the states and Bihar last. A person aged seven years or above who can read and write with understanding is counted as literate.

Options A, C and D are wrong. Twenty and twenty-two per cent are higher than any figure recorded in that decade, and 18 per cent is the 1951 census reading, not the 1947 one, which is the usual trap in this question.

Exam tip: 1947 about 12 per cent, 1951 census 18.33 per cent, 2011 census 74.04 per cent.

The correct answer is B, thirty. The SENSEX tracks thirty large, well traded companies listed on the BSE.

The name is short for Sensitive Index. It was launched in 1986 with 1978-79 as the base year and a base value of 100, and the thirty companies are chosen from major sectors so that the index mirrors the market as a whole. Since 2003 it has been calculated by the free float market capitalisation method, which counts only shares available for trading. The BSE itself was founded in 1875 and is Asia's oldest stock exchange.

Options A, C and D are wrong: the Nifty of the National Stock Exchange has fifty companies, and the BSE has separate broader indices with one hundred, two hundred and five hundred companies. No Indian benchmark uses ten.

Exam tip: SENSEX thirty companies on the BSE, base year 1978-79; Nifty fifty companies on the NSE, base year 1995.

The correct answer is A, Small Industries Development Bank of India. SIDBI is the apex institution for micro, small and medium enterprises.

It was set up in 1990 under an Act of Parliament, began work on 2 April that year, and has its head office at Lucknow. It started as a subsidiary of IDBI and became independent later. SIDBI does not usually lend directly in small amounts; it refinances banks, state finance corporations and microfinance institutions, and runs funds such as the Fund of Funds for Startups and the credit guarantee scheme for small units along with the government. It also publishes the MSME Pulse report.

Options B, C and D change one word each and are simply not the name of any institution. The trap is the pair small and service: SIDBI is about small industries, the sector that employs the most people after agriculture.

Exam tip: SIDBI 1990, Lucknow, MSMEs; NABARD 1982, Mumbai, agriculture and rural credit.

The correct answer is C, SBI Life Insurance. It is a private sector joint venture, not a public sector insurer.

SBI Life was set up in 2001 as a partnership between the State Bank of India and BNP Paribas Cardif of France. Although the State Bank holds a large stake, the company is registered and classified as a private life insurer and its shares are listed on the stock exchanges. The only public sector life insurer in India is the Life Insurance Corporation, set up in 1956.

Option A, United India Insurance of Chennai, and option B, New India Assurance of Mumbai, are two of the four government owned general insurers, along with National Insurance and Oriental Insurance. Option D, the General Insurance Corporation of India, is the state owned national reinsurer. All of them came out of the nationalisation of general insurance in 1972.

Exam tip: public insurers - LIC plus the four general insurers and GIC Re; SBI Life, HDFC Life and ICICI Prudential are private.

The correct answer is D, SEBI. The Securities and Exchange Board of India regulates the securities market and protects investors.

SEBI was set up as a non-statutory body in 1988 and was given statutory powers by the SEBI Act of 1992, passed after the Harshad Mehta scam exposed how weak market supervision was. Its headquarters is in Mumbai, it is run by a chairman appointed by the central government, and appeals against its orders go to the Securities Appellate Tribunal. It registers brokers and mutual funds, checks insider trading and clears public issues.

Option A, RERA, regulates real estate projects and builders. Option B, NABARD, is the apex bank for agriculture and rural credit. Option C, IRDA, now IRDAI, supervises insurance companies.

Exam tip: match the regulator to its market - SEBI securities, RBI banking and currency, IRDAI insurance, PFRDA pensions, RERA real estate.