The Monopolistic and Restrictive Trade Practices Act was passed in the year ______.

The correct answer is D, May 2016. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched on 1 May 2016 at Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. It is run by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and gives a free LPG connection, with a deposit-free cylinder and a fitted regulator, to women of poor households. The aim is to replace firewood, coal and cow dung cakes, whose smoke harms the health of women and children and adds to indoor air pollution. The connection is issued in the name of an adult woman of the family, which is the feature papers most often test. A and B are wrong because July 2017 and January 2018 fall after the launch, when the scheme was already running. C is wrong because May 2014 is when the present government first took office, before this scheme existed. Exam tip: Ujjwala, 1 May 2016, Ballia, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, connection in a woman's name.

The correct answer is A, Change in sales during the year. Inventory investment, also called change in stock, measures the physical stock of goods a firm holds at the end of the year minus the stock it held at the start. Sales are goods that have already left the firm and gone to buyers, so a change in sales is part of consumption or final demand and is never counted as inventory. The three items that do make up stock are unsold finished goods, goods still being made and raw material waiting to be used. B is wrong because a change in the stock of raw material is a clear part of inventory. C is wrong because semi finished goods, also called work in progress, are counted in stock. D is wrong because unsold finished goods are the most obvious part of inventory. Exam tip: inventory equals raw material plus semi finished plus finished goods, and change in stock is a part of gross domestic capital formation.

The correct answer is B, Rural Cooperatives. Rural cooperative credit societies were the microfinance structure already in place when India became independent. They began with the Cooperative Credit Societies Act of 1904, which was passed to free village borrowers from moneylenders, and by 1947 a three tier structure of primary societies, district central cooperative banks and state cooperative banks was working across the provinces. The later forms of microfinance came much later. A is wrong because Joint Liability Groups were introduced by NABARD only in 2004 05 for small tenant farmers who lack land papers. C is wrong because the Self Help Group movement grew from the 1980s, and the SHG Bank Linkage Programme started as a pilot in 1992. D is wrong because the Grameen model belongs to Bangladesh, where Muhammad Yunus began it in the 1970s, and it reached India afterwards. Exam tip: cooperatives 1904, SHG Bank Linkage 1992, Joint Liability Groups 2004.

The correct answer is B, Silver. The Bombay Stock Exchange became the first stock exchange in India to enter commodity derivatives when it launched futures contracts in gold and silver on 1 October 2018. This followed the decision of the Securities and Exchange Board of India to allow a single exchange to deal in both securities and commodities from that date, ending the wall that had kept stock exchanges and commodity exchanges apart. BSE, set up in 1875, is Asia's oldest stock exchange, its benchmark index is the Sensex and it works under SEBI. A is wrong because diamond is not traded as a commodity derivative on the exchange. C is wrong because platinum was not part of that launch. D is wrong because equity is a security, not a commodity, and equity derivatives had been traded long before 2018. Exam tip: BSE founded in 1875, Asia's oldest exchange; gold and silver commodity derivatives from 1 October 2018; the regulator is SEBI.

The correct answer is C, Article 267. Article 267 allows Parliament by law to establish a Contingency Fund of India, held at the disposal of the President so that advances can be made for unforeseen expenditure before Parliament authorises it; the amount is afterwards recouped from the Consolidated Fund through a supplementary appropriation. Option A is wrong because Article 265 lays down that no tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law. Option B is wrong because Article 266 creates the Consolidated Fund of India and the Public Account, from the first of which no money may be drawn without parliamentary authority. Option D is wrong because Article 270 deals with taxes levied and collected by the Union and distributed between the Union and the States, which is the divisible pool the Finance Commission works on.