Which of the following Acts of 1947 regulates the Indian labour law with regard to trade unions as well as individual workmen?

The correct answer is A, Cyclical unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is the unemployment that a slump or depression in the economy creates: when demand falls, firms sell less, cut production and let workers go, and those jobs come back once demand recovers. It is therefore tied to the trade cycle of boom and slump, and it is the kind of unemployment John Maynard Keynes wrote about after the Great Depression, when he argued that the government should spend to lift demand. It is common in industrial economies and rare in a largely agricultural one such as India, where disguised and seasonal unemployment matter more. B is wrong because frictional unemployment is the short gap while a worker changes jobs or a fresh graduate hunts for the first one. C is wrong because seasonal unemployment comes from work being available only in some months, as in farming or sugar mills. D is wrong because structural unemployment arises when the skills workers hold no longer match the jobs the economy offers. Exam tip: a depression brings cyclical unemployment, while a skills mismatch brings structural unemployment.

The correct answer is D, 100. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 promises every rural household at least 100 days of unskilled manual wage work in a financial year. The scheme began in 200 districts in February 2006, covered the whole country by 2008, and was renamed after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009. Any adult member of a rural household can demand work; the job must be given within fifteen days of the demand and within five kilometres of the village, and if it is not given the state must pay an unemployment allowance. At least one third of the workers are to be women, wages are paid into bank or post office accounts, and the works taken up are mostly water conservation, ponds, roads and land development. A is wrong because 45 days is not the guarantee. B is wrong because 365 days would mean work all year, which the Act never promised. C is wrong because 250 days is not the figure in the law. Exam tip: MGNREGA 2005, 100 days a year, work within 15 days or an unemployment allowance.

The correct answer is D, Pigou. A.C. Pigou belongs to the welfare group of definitions, not the wealth group. In his book The Economics of Welfare he treated economics as the study of that part of social welfare which can be brought into relation with money, carrying forward the line taken by Alfred Marshall, who called economics a study of people in the ordinary business of life. The wealth definitions came earlier. A is wrong because Adam Smith, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, called economics the science of wealth and is the father of the wealth definition. B is wrong because J.B. Say described economics as the science which deals with wealth. C is wrong because Francis Walker held that economics is that body of knowledge which relates to wealth. Later Lionel Robbins gave the scarcity definition, treating economics as the study of human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means. Exam tip: wealth – Smith, Say, Walker; welfare – Marshall, Pigou; scarcity – Robbins.

The correct answer is B, increase the repo rate. The repo rate is the rate at which the Reserve Bank lends short-term money to banks against government securities. When inflation keeps rising, the Reserve Bank raises this rate, so banks borrow less and charge more on their own loans, spending and demand cool down and prices rise more slowly. Such a step is called a dear money or tight monetary policy, and the decision is taken by the six-member Monetary Policy Committee, which has to keep retail inflation at four per cent within a band of two percentage points on either side. A is wrong because cutting the repo rate makes money cheaper and adds to demand, which is done to lift growth when inflation is low. C is wrong because a lower reverse repo rate makes it less attractive for banks to park money with the Reserve Bank, so more money stays in the market and inflation gets worse. D is wrong because leaving the rate unchanged does nothing about rising prices. Exam tip: inflation high – repo rate up; growth slow – repo rate down.

The correct answer is C, neonatal mortality rate. The neonatal period is the first 28 completed days after birth, and the neonatal mortality rate counts the deaths in that period for every 1,000 live births in a year. It is watched closely because most of these deaths come from a few causes that good care can prevent, such as birth asphyxia, low birth weight, early infection and preterm birth. Within it, deaths in the first seven days are counted separately as early neonatal deaths. A is wrong because the infant mortality rate covers deaths of children below one year of age per 1,000 live births, a wider group. B is wrong because the crude death rate counts all deaths in a year per 1,000 of the whole population, without regard to age. D is wrong because an age-specific mortality rate counts deaths in one chosen age group per 1,000 people of that group. Exam tip: neonatal – within 28 days; infant – within one year; under-five – within five years, all per 1,000 live births.