Which Indian financial institution protects investors in a stock market?

The correct answer is C, M3. The Reserve Bank of India publishes four measures of money supply, and M3 is the one called broad money, also known as aggregate monetary resources. It is made of currency with the public, demand deposits with banks, other deposits with the RBI and, above all, time deposits with banks. Adding time deposits captures almost all the money the banking system has created, which is why M3 is the figure policy makers watch. A is wrong because M1, currency plus demand deposits plus other deposits with the RBI, is narrow money, the most liquid measure of all. B is wrong because M2 is M1 plus savings deposits with post office savings banks, and it is still a narrow measure. D is wrong because M4 is M3 plus total post office deposits, the widest measure, but the name broad money belongs to M3. Exam tip: M1 and M2 are narrow, M3 and M4 are broad, and M3 is the benchmark.

The correct answer is A, 1956. Parliament passed the Life Insurance Corporation Act in 1956, and the Life Insurance Corporation of India began work on 1 September that year, after the life insurance business of 245 private insurers and provident societies was taken over and merged into it. The aim was to carry insurance into the villages and to give policyholders the security of a sovereign guarantee on their savings. LIC is headquartered in Mumbai and its motto is Yogakshemam Vahamyaham. General insurance was nationalised much later, in 1972, and the regulator IRDAI was set up in 1999. B is wrong because in 1948 life insurance was still entirely in private hands. C is wrong because by 1971 LIC had already been working for fifteen years. D is wrong because 1965 also falls after the Act, not in the year it was passed. Exam tip: LIC Act 1956, LIC began 1 September 1956; general insurance nationalised 1972, IRDAI 1999.

The correct answer is D, Gujarat. Amul grew out of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union, started at Anand in Gujarat in 1946 when the farmers of Kheda district organised against the low prices paid to them by middlemen. Tribhuvandas Patel led the farmers and Verghese Kurien built the dairy into a modern enterprise, so that milk from lakhs of small producers could be collected, chilled, processed and sold under one brand. The Anand pattern was carried across the country through Operation Flood from 1970, which made India the largest milk producer in the world, and Kurien is remembered as the father of the White Revolution. A is wrong because Delhi is a market for milk, not the home of the cooperative. B is wrong because Karnataka's cooperative brand is Nandini. C is wrong because Uttar Pradesh produces a great deal of milk but Amul did not begin there. Exam tip: Amul — Anand in Gujarat, 1946; Operation Flood 1970 under Verghese Kurien.

The correct answer is A, disguised unemployment. Disguised unemployment is the situation in which more people work at a job than it actually needs, so taking some of them away would not reduce output at all. Indian agriculture is the standard example: a family holding of two hectares may keep five or six members busy when two could finish the same work, and the extra hands live on a share of the produce without adding to it. Their marginal productivity is close to zero, which is why the unemployment is called hidden or disguised. NCERT's Class 9 economics chapter on people as resource uses this very example. B is wrong because seasonal unemployment means being idle only in certain months, such as between sowing and harvest. C is wrong because structural unemployment comes from a mismatch between the skills workers have and the jobs the economy creates. D is wrong because marginal unemployment is not a standard category of this kind. Exam tip: disguised unemployment means surplus workers with nearly zero marginal productivity.

The correct answer is D, 1950. The Planning Commission was set up in March 1950 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, not by the Constitution and not by an Act of Parliament, which made it an extra-constitutional advisory body. The Prime Minister was its chairman; Jawaharlal Nehru was the first chairman and Gulzarilal Nanda the first deputy chairman. Its work was to assess the country's resources and draw up five-year plans. The First Five Year Plan ran from 1951 to 1956, was based on the Harrod-Domar model and put agriculture and irrigation first. The Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, which advises rather than allocates funds. A is wrong because 2019 is decades after the Commission was created. B is wrong because no such body was founded in 2000. C is wrong because 1947 is the year of independence, three years before the Commission came into being. Exam tip: Planning Commission March 1950, First Five Year Plan 1951-56, NITI Aayog 1 January 2015.