TRAI's Independent Drive Test reported for August 2026 was carried out in Balasore city, which falls in which licensed service area?

The correct answer is Reliance Jio, whose average download speed on the tested route was 239.24 Mbps on its 5G and 4G networks, the highest of the four operators. Airtel in option A came next at 67.10 Mbps, Vi in option D recorded 24.65 Mbps, and BSNL in option B was lowest at 8.18 Mbps because its service on the route was measured on a 3G network. On uploads the order differed, with Airtel at 16.61 Mbps marginally ahead of Reliance Jio at 16.28 Mbps, followed by Vi and BSNL. Reliance Jio also had the fewest poor-signal samples and the fewest dropped calls on the route. Remember that such readings describe only the area and the hours of the drive test.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Communications, under which the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India functions and which issued the release on the Balasore drive test. TRAI's job is to regulate telecom services and tariffs and to protect the interests of subscribers, and drive tests are one of the ways it verifies the quality of service that operators actually deliver. Option B, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, handles electronics manufacturing and information technology policy, not telecom regulation. Option C, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, deals with broadcasting, films and the press. Option D, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, looks after trade and industrial policy. Candidates should also link the regulator with the quality parameters it publishes, such as call drop rate and Mean Opinion Score.

The correct answer is education, human health and residential care, and public administration and defence. These were left out of the first framework and together they make up nearly twenty-one per cent of the gross value added of services, so bringing them in would lift the coverage of the monthly index to about 78.4 per cent of the gross value added of the whole services sector. Options A and B name service activities that are already inside the existing framework, which draws on administrative and tax data for them. Option D is wrong because construction, mining and electricity are not services at all; the output of such activity is captured by the industrial production series instead of a services index.

The correct answer is 2024-25. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation began a monthly compilation of the Index of Services Production for the formal sector on a trial basis in July 2026, and that is the base year it adopted for the exercise. Options A and B name older base years of the kind used for other long-running statistical series, and they are wrong here because this index is new rather than a revision of an old one. Option C is wrong for the same reason, as no earlier base was carried forward into the services index. For the examination, pair the name of the index with its ministry, its base year and the fact that it is compiled monthly, since questions on new statistical products almost always turn on the base year.

The correct answer is 19. The initial framework of the index follows nineteen broad service sub-sectors, relying on high-frequency administrative data sources together with data on outward supplies filed under the goods and services tax, which between them account for close to sixty per cent of the gross value added of the services sector. The other three options are plausible-looking counts but none of them matches the framework described in the approach paper. Candidates should also note what the present index leaves out, namely the core tasks of government, non-market activity and services exempt from the goods and services tax, because the whole purpose of the new paper is to close exactly those gaps. It is also worth recalling that the monthly compilation for the formal sector began on a trial basis in July 2026, and that the base year was fixed at that point.